


UNIFIED THEORY

by segmentcalled



Category: Polygon/McElroy Vlogs & Podcasts RPF
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Scientists, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Anxiety, Bad Decisions, Communication, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Cuddling & Snuggling, Developing Relationship, Dissociation, Dorks in Love, Dubious Science, Epistolary Narrative Elements, Explicit Consent, Fake Science, Flirting, Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, For Science!, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Getting Together, Kissing, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Making Out, Massage, Mature Competent Professional Gays, Mutual Pining, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Oral Sex, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Panic Attacks, Physics, Praise Kink, Rating May Change, Research, Sexual Content, Sharing a Bed, Tags Contain Spoilers, Teasing, Travel, Unraveled, half-life - Freeform, showering together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-10-27 23:40:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 76,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20768867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/segmentcalled/pseuds/segmentcalled
Summary: Polygon Research Facility, 201-.In collaboration with their team at Polygon and Polygon's sibling research center, Patrick Gill and Brian D. Gilbert have been assigned to conduct research on [CLASSIFIED]. The exact properties of these materials are as yet unknown, so they have been instructed to proceed with caution. The notes to follow will outline their process in further detail.





	1. i.

**Author's Note:**

> _don't hang up yet, i'm not done_  
_i'm an expert, i'm the one_  
_the one who was right all along_  
_better to be laughed at than wrong_  
\- [touch-tone telephone](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioULRchLwB0), lemon demon
> 
> happy anniversary, unraveled!
> 
> this is set as a sort of prequel to half-life, if half-life took place approximately thirty years later than it canonically does. you don't need to know anything about half-life to understand this, because i honestly know very little; i've only ever watched the [streams](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfHsBTztwK8692rpsh1PY_NYsj8PPHKF2%22) pat and brian did of it, so if anything's wildly inaccurate, SORRY, it's fanfiction i do what i want
> 
> this fic takes heavy inspiration from (obviously) half-life, touch-tone telephone, and unraveled, specifically [this video that someone made of clips from unraveled set to touch-tone telephone](https://taakoshell.tumblr.com/post/184211747844/nootladoot-i-made-this-because-i-have-no-self). there's also definitely a taste of some other stuff (please retweet comes to mind lol) but those are really the foundation of this!
> 
> email formatting from [[this tutorial]](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/A_Guide_to_Coding_and_Fanworks/works/7953412%22) and text message formatting from [[this tutorial]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6434845/chapters/14729722) !!
> 
> im gonna get a little sappy here for a second so bear with me ; this fic is the first thing i was able to write after two years of being completely burnt out and unable to write for fun, and i wrote all 75k words of the first draft between may 1 and may 30. it sprang into my brain fully formed and it was all i could do to write it down; i've never been so compelled to tell a story before. since then i've written more than i EVER have in my life. to say that this fic and fandom changed my life is not an exaggeration. so i'm very sentimental about it and spent a long time working on it to make it what it is today. i learned so much writing this and had so much fun with it, and i can't wait to share it with you!
> 
> thank you so much to my partner (who doesn't even go here!), to fishcola, to biandreadytocry, for beta-ing this! and thank you to literally every single person who i've ever talked to in this fandom (and many i haven't!) for your support and for your talent and for your kindness and for making this community such a wonderful place to be.
> 
> per my personal longfic standards, i have written the whole thing in advance, so you can expect updates every other day! i hope you like it! ♥

Pat hasn’t really been sure what to make of the new guy.

Pretty? Check.

Brilliant? Check.

An absolute whirlwind of barely-contained chaotic, kinetic energy? Check, check, and check.

He’s got big hazel eyes; dark, tired shadows bloom beneath them the longer he works here. The project he and Jenna are working on wraps up, after Pat watches them throw their whole hearts and souls into it for months, and then there is barely any time to blink before Brian and Pat are shunted together for the next thing.

He turns out to be even more incredible at close quarters. His mouth goes a mile a minute; his mind goes faster still. Pat barely has time to be impressed by one idea before Brian springs forward with the next, always a step ahead of himself, always ready to find the next big thing.

So it shouldn’t be a surprise when he — well, when he finds the next big thing.

His eyes are bright with excitement as he launches into an explanation of their results to their boss. If he’s being totally honest with himself, Pat is in actuality only there for backup, to fill in a detail or two that slips through the cracks of Brian’s enthusiastic dissertation. Like, yeah, they worked on it together, but — c’mon. It was Brian, really, that made the pieces fit.

“Well,” says Tara, clapping her hands together in a gesture of finality, “guess that’s settled, then. You two are going to lead the next phase of the project.”

Brian stutters out his thanks and Pat echoes him. Brian slips him a smile as they exit the room, before they head in opposite directions. Pat doesn’t even think to be restrained before he smiles back, genuine and grateful.

He doesn’t mind being outshone by the new guy. Really. He doesn’t. At least he isn’t being left completely in the dust.

The immediate next step, as they wait for samples to arrive and machinery to finish being constructed, involves a lot of frowning at screens and piles of information and taking notes and noticing the focused crease between Brian’s eyebrows.

“Careful,” Pat says, during a lull in activity, “if you don’t stop making that face you’re gonna get wrinkles there.” He taps his finger on the same spot between his own eyebrows.

“Oh, shit, am I making a face?” Brain raises his eyebrows as if to stretch out the afflicted skin, then wiggles them at Pat. Pat huffs a laugh, which makes Brian’s grin grow more genuine. “Can’t be making this pretty face age before its time, can I?” he adds, and for good measure throws in an over-the-top wink, tosses his hair.

“Ah, you mean like me,” Pat says, deadpan, joking, though aware somewhere in the pit of his stomach the things he’s noticed about himself in the past year or two. He hasn’t shaved in a while and the patch of white in his beard is out in full force, the one that he swears keeps getting bigger as he gets older. His eyes crinkle more when he smiles, now. He looks tired, and perpetually stressed, and he knows it.

Brian swats Pat’s arm, pulled-punch and friendly. “Puh-_lease_. You look fine. You’re, what, thirty? Thirty-one? You’ve got a great look going. That white spot in your beard is cool as hell. Is it from a scar or something?”

Pat, a little surprised, more than a little flattered, says, “It’s a pigment thing, yeah. I don’t have any gray hairs in my actual hair, I’ll have you know.”

“Bet if you poked around enough you could find one. You always look kinda worried. Stress is bad for you, don’t you know?” A self-effacing grin flashes across his face.

“Ah, yes. I will take this knowledge from the man who gave himself shingles out of stress but a few months ago.”

Brian makes a face at him, narrows his eyes and scrunches up his nose, and Pat laughs. Brian does too, breaking his affronted character, and taps his pen on his tablet. Pat leans forward a little to peer upside-down at the screen in Brian’s hands.

“Shit, we’ve got a lot of data from today, huh?” Pat says.

“Yeah, and — oh my god, it’s already seven?”

“Is it? Oh _fuck_ — I was supposed to be meeting Allegra like, uh, like ten minutes ago, goddammit, she’s gonna be so pissed,” Pat says, already shoving his things in his bag. “Sorry to leave in such a hurry —”

“Go on, Pat Gill! I’m fine, we should’ve been done an hour ago, anyway. I’ll pack everything up, don’t even worry about it. It’s a Friday. Go have fun,” Brian says, waving Pat off, and so he goes. His last look at Brian is of him turning back to the tablet, tapping his pen again.

* * *

Brian is already in the computer lab on Monday morning when Pat arrives. Pat, who has rarely encountered a morning he enjoyed, grunts out an indecipherable greeting and drops his bag on the table with a _thunk_. He cradles his coffee in both hands as he sinks down into the chair next to Brian.

“Whatcha got?” Pat says, slouching into the chair next to him. Brian gives him a worn smile and slides the tablet over.

The mess of data from Friday has been carefully notated on a spreadsheet, meticulously organized. More than that, Pat realizes as he swipes his finger to scroll through the page. There’s nearly double the information from the last time he set eyes on the document. Pat stares at the long rows of numbers, astonished, then flicks his eyes up to Brian’s tired face.

“You didn’t come in this weekend, did you?”

“I was on a roll,” Brian confesses, sheepish. He runs a hand through his hair. “It’s interesting stuff, though, I think. Here, look, I had to make a new section about those weird outliers we kept finding. There were a bunch more. I want to keep looking into it.”

“Goddamn. I — shit, I thought that was a mistake on our end or something. You kept finding this?” Pat runs his finger down the new column, tracing the numbers, squinting at it. It is just as Brian said, with no error that he can find. He no longer feels sleepy; the adrenaline of chasing down something new quickly burns his exhaustion away.

“Yeah, let me show you. I kept trying to figure out how to replicate it this weekend, and I think I tracked it down. It’s so fucking cool, Pat, I can’t wait for you to see this.”

Brian pulls up more files; graphs, equations, models, charts, methods. He likes to have everything open all at once, so he can easily reference anything they might need. Pat’s always absentmindedly closing stuff after he uses it. It is a constant battle when they are sharing a device. He flips through the relevant information as he speaks.

“So, like, we know that using oscillating electromagnetic fields and beams of high-energy plasma creates currents of displacement energy in the samples, blah blah blah, that’s the basic shit, that’s what Clayton’s putting together in the lab. But, like, even the facility in New Mexico doesn’t have the full-sized tech yet, and I’m sort of — I mean, look,” Brian says, scrolling to the bottom. “Given what we _do_ know, it looks like things might pop off at a way lower level than what we were really thinking. And no one — uh. No one’s exactly managed to figure out, to my knowledge, anyway, what would happen if it resonated beyond that threshold? Which wouldn’t even — I don’t think — be hard. I don’t know if it could happen in our lab. But. It might, is what I’m saying.”

Pat squints at the tablet. Swipes at the screen, to flip back through the things Brian just showed him. “No kidding, jeez. We should probably get Tara in here to take a look at it.”

Brian nods. “I wanted you to see it first. I didn’t want to go to her without you.”

Pat is surprised by this, then surprised that he’s surprised, but he’s already talking, saying, “Man, that’s real nice of you, you didn’t have to — you did this yourself —”

“Uh, I super did not! You made the foundation for this, Patrick, I couldn’t have done it without you. We’re in this together,” Brian says, and meets Pat’s eyes dead on. Pat would ordinarily flinch away from such intense eye contact, but he is trapped in Brian’s eyes, caught a little off-guard by his sincerity.

“Thank you, Brian,” Pat finally manages, quietly, and glances at the screen again for something else to look at.

“‘Course,” Brian says, as softly as Pat had spoken. He shifts in his seat to rest an elbow on the table, chin in hand, focus now trained on the pages of data they’ve compiled. “Let’s figure out how we’re gonna present this, okay?”

By the next day, they’ve got a meeting with an impressed Tara. By that Friday, they have full permission to have the run of all relevant tech in the experimental lab, and offers of assistance from half their coworkers, and two other teams moved to different projects to work with this new data. Pat has spent most of the latter half of the week writing up a report to submit, and when he’s not writing, he’s wondering what the fuck just happened.

Brian plops down in the chair next to Pat’s at the computer.

“How’s the writing going?”

Pat turns the screen towards Brian wordlessly and scoots the mouse towards him. Brian skims through it, scrolling certainly faster than he’d be able to read, but pausing at the denser parts. He glances over at Pat, a hint of a smile on his face.

“Looking pretty good, Patrick Gill.”

“Thanks. I was gonna ask, actually, if when you have a minute you could look it over? More thoroughly, I mean, and revise and edit as you’d like. I think it would be good to have a second set of eyes on it,” Pat says. “Plus, y’know, you did contribute a _little_ of the work,” he adds, teasing. Brian brightens at the prospect.

“I’d love to! I can do that now, if you want? Clayton and all them are great, but I feel like I need a minute away from training on all the equipment, y’know? How’s all that supposed to sink in if I don’t have any time to process?”

“Hah. Yeah, I get that. I’m sure they’re gonna want me in there to run through some stuff, too, so it’s probably not a bad plan for us to swap places for a little bit.”

“Can I steal your computer, then? You’re already logged in and mine’ll take ages to boot up.”

“Sure. Don’t hack my emails or whatever,” Pat says, already standing to let Brian take his seat. Brian flutters his eyelashes at him innocently, and Pat barks out a laugh as he leaves the room. He hadn’t thought to bring his lab goggles or anything today, because he doesn’t spend a ton of time in the lab under ordinary circumstances, and anyway he thought he’d just be doing more writing, so he stops to poke his head into Allegra’s office.

“Hey, I’m heading to the lab, do you have your goggles here?

“Hello, Patrick, nice to see you too,” Allegra says, mock-disdainful. “Good to see that you come prepared.” She’s gestures at the coat rack next to the door. A selection of once-abandoned, now-reclaimed lab coats and goggles reside there, hanging off the various hooks. She collects them when people forget them. Pat would bet that at least some of her lab safety spoils once rightfully belonged to him. “Just bring them back, alright? Or I’ll have to track you down later.”

“Oh, heaven forbid,” Pat says, plucking a pair of goggles that he’s reasonably sure will fit over his glasses from a hook and retreats, tossing a _thank you!_ over his shoulder. He can practically hear the fondly exasperated shake of the head that Allegra undoubtedly gives in return.

Clayton, Simone, and Jenna are in the lab when Pat arrives, his hair in a sloppy ponytail and his borrowed goggles securely on. Simone and Jenna are deeply engrossed in some project with a fiddly machine that Pat’s not sure he’s seen before. Clayton, however, looks up when Pat comes in and smiles. Pat crosses the room to him.

“Brian had enough?”

Pat laughs. “He seemed overwhelmed, and anyway I wanted him to take a look at our report. Plus, I figured you’d want to run me through the training manual or whatever before you set us loose on all your fancy equipment here.”

“Ah, yeah, you caught me, I was gonna ask you Monday. But you’re here now! That’s even better. The anti-mass spectrometer over there is new, that’s the one that you and Brian will be using most, but it seems to be occupied at the moment,” Clayton says, waving a hand at Jenna and Simone, who seem to have not even noticed Pat’s arrival. “But there’s plenty of other stuff we need to go over aside from that, so don’t worry. Come over here, let me show you this.”

Pat drops by Allegra’s office again at the end of the day to return the goggles. The little room is crowded: Simone is perched on the edge of Allegra’s desk; Jenna stands beside her, arms crossed casually; Jeff and Brian are milling about by the door.

“Dang, did I miss out on an invitation to the party?” Pat says lightly, pulling the goggles off his head and hanging them up.

“I figured you’d be coming by one way or another,” Allegra says cheerfully. “We’re going out for drinks, you in?”

Five pairs of eyes look at him, awaiting his response. Of course she’d con him into going out and being social for the second consecutive week by asking him in front of an audience.

He sighs, a little dramatically. Allegra grins. “Yeah, sure, let me get my shit together. Is it present company only?”

“Who knows! We’ll see if we can grab anyone else on the way out,” Allegra says.

Pat shakes his head fondly and exits the room.

“And fix your hair, Patrick, it looks like a two-year-old did it!” Allegra calls after him. He rolls his eyes even though she can’t see him, but pulls the ponytail holder out of his hair and runs his hands through it to make it fall normally again.

Tara adds herself to the party as they are leaving; Pat falls in at the back of the pack. Simone is cackling at something Jeff has said, something Pat missed entirely, and he shoves his hands in his pockets and tries not to look too sulky about the not-even-unwelcome concept of socializing with a group of people whose company he actually genuinely enjoys.

Brian glances over his shoulder then, and sees Pat, who must definitely not be succeeding at not moping, because Brian immediately slows to fall in step with him.

“Something on your mind?” Brian says.

“Nah, just tired. Been a pretty big week,” Pat says, and finds he can’t even pretend to be wry at Brian, his smile coming too easily.

“I’ll say! I’m glad Simone asked if I’d come along, I was sort of,” he pauses, looking hesitant. “Sort of starting to worry people might resent me,” he finishes, quietly, so only Pat can hear.

“For what? For being great at your job? Please. Everyone thinks you’re incredible, you’re smart as hell and you’re not a dick about it. I’ve never heard even one person talk shit about you, and people talk shit about _everyone_ sometimes.”

“Even you?”

“Do I talk shit or do I get shit talked about me?” He grins, teasing a little.

Brian laughs. “Both, probably.”

“The answer is, in fact, both! We have a winner, Dr. Gilbert. I do try not to be an asshole as a rule, though. I might not always _succeed_, but I _try_. Plus, y’know, these are my friends. And it’s not — it’s not like anyone’s mean, really, generally speaking. It’s just that it can be a lot of time spent with the same people in close quarters.”

“Oh, no, yeah, I totally get that. I’m not judging you, Pat Gill, sometimes we all gotta talk a little shit.”

“Are we gossiping back here?” says Simone.

“Yeah, my god, can you believe it, there’s this one lady I work with, what’s-her-face, Dr. _ahh the French?_ Swear to god she’s always eavesdropping on every conversation in a hundred-foot radius,” Pat deadpans, and barely manages to suppress his laughter at her mock-outrage until she elbows him in the ribs, whereupon they both collapse into giggles.

Brian’s smiling, looking fond and a little shy. “Got any good gossip, Simone?” he says. “Any scandals we should be aware of?”

“Hm, well, I heard some dumbasses are acting like they’re too cool for everyone else by walking way in the back and ignoring everyone, so I of course had to come check that out. Lo and behold, they’re actually just being massive dorks.”

“That’s my secret, I’m always being a massive dork,” Brian says cheerfully, holding the door for Simone and Pat, bowing grandly. Pat pretends to tip an invisible hat at him, and he grins.

They all pile into the big round booth at the back corner; Pat ends up squeezed between Allegra and Brian. He orders his drink and braces himself for a night of incorrigible teasing from his best friend, and from his coworker with an irrepressible sycophantic streak.

Allegra lets Brian get through approximately one sentence about work before she shoves a basket of chips and salsa at him and gives him her very best disdainful frown.

“No science. Only chips. You’re getting kicked out if you say any more science things at this table and I won’t give you _any_ of my guacamole and it will be very sad,” she informs him.

Brian glances to Pat for confirmation, and he shrugs a little and nods. “It’s true.”

He watches Brian’s expression flicker to anxiety as he goes through the awkward realization of, _oh fuck I am twenty-four with a PhD in physics and it is my whole life and I do not have anything else to talk about._

Pat knows this realization well, but skewed to a different timeline. He’s just over half-a-decade older than Brian and feels this way most of the time. Perfectly in his depth in the lab; constantly floundering outside of it.

But Brian, unlike Pat, recovers quickly and gracefully. He runs a hand through his hair in a nervous fidget, but follows through the gesture by resting his elbow on the table and resting his chin in his hand, leaning forward, passing it off as resettling into the beginning of a new and engaging conversation. It’s like watching him flip a switch. It is outright remarkable.

“What are you up to this weekend, then, Allegra?” Brian asks cheerfully. She laughs, but humors him.

“Absolutely nothing! As you should be too. I heard you were at work, like, all last weekend.”

Brian looks a little embarrassed, but not chastised. “I mean, to be fair, I was kind of on a roll.”

“I thought we weren’t talking about work,” Pat says, stealing a chip and crunching it as punctuation.

“Aw, jeez, it always sneaks back in,” Allegra says.

“You didn’t last two sentences!” Pat points out. “That’s probably a _record_. Does this mean I get custody of the guac?”

“Nope!” she says.

“That’s just cruel,” Brian says, backing Pat up.

“You can have some, but you can’t have all of it,” Allegra concedes, nudging the bowl a little closer to Pat. He takes another chip and makes eye contact with Brian, who gives him a quick, conspiratorial wink, so fast that Pat almost thinks he could have imagined it.

But he definitely didn’t, and definitely doesn’t imagine either the way that his heartbeat kicks up a notch for a moment afterwards. He takes a sip of his drink for something else to do with his hands, and turns his attention to his phone. He’s pretending, probably ineffectively, to be doing something important, even though all he’s actually doing is scrolling through Twitter.

When he tunes back into the conversation, it’s because Simone is laughing so hard at something that her face is bright red and everyone else is laughing with her, to the point where people in nearby booths have looked over. Her laugh is infectious in the best way, but gosh is it loud.

“I think I went to outer space and missed the joke,” Pat says, as an aside to a snickering Allegra.

“Simone drank out of Tara’s glass by accident and was so surprised that it wasn’t her drink that she spit it out,” she informs him, ever patient.

“Gross,” Pat says, which only serves to enforce Allegra’s giggles. He rolls his eyes and gently elbows her in the bicep, smiling. He realizes belatedly that Brian is watching the two of them intently; Brian blinks quickly and glances away when Pat catches him, but just as soon looks back.

“Dumb question for you?” Brian says.

“Shoot,” Pat says, as Allegra raises an eyebrow.

Brian looks embarrassed to have the attention of both of them rather than just Pat, and so Pat anticipates the question before he says, “Are you guys, like, a thing?”

Pat starts to shake his head no, like someone calm and not kind of drunk would do. Allegra, however, being neither of those things, snort-laughs and shoves at Pat’s shoulder. “Ew, no, he’s practically like my _brother_, that’s gross!”

“Glad you think I’m gross,” Pat teases, and she shoves him again.

“You’re the worst!”

“To answer your question in _not_ an outraged shriek, Brian, no, we are super not.”

“Pat was, like, sort of like my mentor when I started here? Like, uh. Not officially, you know, I mean, I was working under Chelsea, mostly, which I still do. She’s the best. But, like, being twenty-two and starting out here? It’s a lot, dude, and I’m glad someone had my back through it, y’know?”

“You sap,” Pat says.

“Yeah, well, it’s true!”

“Some of us didn’t go to college when we were still infants and developed some professional skills before leaping headfirst into the workforce. Wait, hang on, Brian can’t even back me up here, you’re _also_ some sort of kid genius.”

“I am not!”

Pat gives him a flat look.

“Okay, okay, whatever, but not like _working at a job that requires a PhD at twenty-two_ levels.”

“Brian,” Pat says, “you were _twenty-three_ when you started here. I know this because Allegra wouldn’t shut up about not being the baby anymore. You guys make me feel _ancient_.”

“Sorry you hang out with the teen prodigies while you’re on a perfectly normal track, Patrick,” Allegra says, in the stern tone she gets when she is about to lecture Pat about ‘not being self-deprecating’ or whatever. He gets the same tone with her. They’re both like this.

“Don’t worry, Pat, you’re a smarty-pants just like the rest of us,” Simone chips in from the other side of Allegra, and Pat fails not to visibly wince at the realization that their conversation has been listened in upon by the rest of the table.

“Thanks, Simone,” Pat says, a little gruffly. She sticks her tongue out at him and turns back to resume her conversation with Tara and Jeff. They’re talking about some video game that Pat has never played, but which Allegra perks up upon hearing the name of and immediately inserts herself into the conversation.

Pat exchanges a glance with Brian.

“Kind of a chaotic bunch,” Pat says.

“No kidding,” Brian says. He tilts his head back to rest against the back of the booth with a soft _thunk_. His glass, like Allegra’s, has been emptied and refilled again at least once, unlike Pat’s barely-touched drink. The anxious high-strung edge has been worn off of his demeanor. He looks tired.

“You alright?”

“Yeah, just sorta — just sorta caught up with me. I might be a little drunk,” he adds, with a conspiratorial air. Pat laughs. “Also tired. You’re right. It has been a big week.”

“No one would hold it against you if you needed to go home.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m having fun, though. Despite all evidence to the contrary,” he adds, with a slow but sincere smile.

“Well, that’s the important part, I guess. Where d’you live, if you don’t mind me asking? You have far to go?”

“Nah, just about fifteen minutes on the subway. You?”

“Like ten, thataway,” Pat says, nodding his head vaguely in the direction of his apartment. “Just close enough for me to expect that I’ll make it to work on time if I leave at quarter-to, and just far enough for that to somehow never happen.”

Brian laughs. “That sure explains a lot about your morning state.”

“I mean, I’m also not really a person until I’ve had some caffeine and like an additional hour to wake up.”

“I may have, possibly, perhaps, noticed this. You hardly say a word ‘till ten.”

Pat laughs. “Yeah, yeah, I’ve been called out. Tara makes fun of me for it all the time, but she seems to like me enough to keep me around.”

“Hey, like Simone said, you’re definitely one of the smarty-pantses. Smarty-pantses? Is that the plural of smarty-pants?” His eyebrows draw together in the same way they do when he’s trying to solve a problem in the lab.

“I genuinely have no idea. I think that pants is the plural of, uh, pants.”

This makes Brian laugh very hard, and so does Pat, caught up in his smile. “Makes sense to me,” Brian says. “I did double-major with writing for my bachelor’s, you’d think I’d know this sort of thing.”

“Jesus. Is there anything you can’t do?”

Brian takes this seriously, and deeply considers it for a moment. “I can never remember to get my hair cut before it starts looking stupid. And I don’t do sports. Except dancing. Dancing is sort of a sport?”

Pat bursts into helpless, disbelieving laughter. “You really dance?”

“Yeah, man, I’ve done theatre, like, my entire _life_, and my sister dances, like, professionally. I can jump really fucking high, too.”

Pat shakes his head in a sort of astonished wonder. “Theatre, like, including the singing kind?”

“Oh! Yeah, I did a lot of that. Still do a lot of singing. My roommate is a music producer, we used to do this dorky podcast with my sister and write songs every week. Sometimes we’d do improv songs live on YouTube, or whatever. Super fun. He taught me how to play ukulele and — oh my god, Pat, don’t make that face at me, it’s not a big deal, really!”

“If I so much as _think_ about doing anything musical in front of an audience my heart stops for a second. I can’t believe you do all this, like, what the fuck, when did you even have time?”

“Oh, I totally didn’t! We had to stop the podcast and the video stuff when I started working on my postgrad, it was all too much. I miss it, but, you know, still don’t really have time. It’s a pretty musical household, though, all things considered. You should see us play _MarioKart_, we’re all cursing at each other and singing shitty pop songs, it’s so fun. Hey! You _should_ see us play _MarioKart_, you should come over sometime, it would be so fun.”

“God, I haven’t played _MarioKart_ in ages. That sounds like it would be great.” He, wow, now that he thinks about it, he really doesn’t do much other than work shit, huh.

Brian lights up. “Yes! Do I have your number? I can text you, if you want, or whatever, I mean, if that’s okay?”

“Yeah, ‘course,” Pat says, and Brian eagerly fishes his phone out of his pocket. Pat rattles off his number, and moments later his own phone buzzes with a text which consists of several sunglasses emojis. Brian leans over his shoulder and insists that Pat include the _David_ in _Brian David Gilbert_, he’s made a _brand, okay_. Pat rolls his eyes, smiling, and acquiesces.

Shortly thereafter, the group consensus is that it is time to leave. Well, it’s mostly the Simone consensus, because she proclaims that she’s ready to go home and more often than not everyone sorta follows her lead. They split up outside the front door; Brian, Pat, and Allegra are all headed in the same direction. Allegra has the farthest to go, and has also had the most to drink of the three of them, to the point where Pat needles her into getting a Lyft home before they even make it to the subway, and then it’s him and Brian alone together.

Brian looks different in the harsh fluorescent lights underground. The dark shadows beneath his eyes are brought into stark contrast against his pale face, the slight flush of his cheeks. His hair is mussed from him running his own hands through it so many times throughout the night. His guard is not so high, here, with his jacket unzipped and his shirt unbuttoned enough to show a triangle of bare skin beneath. The rigid tension in his shoulders seems to have fallen out, lost somewhere along the way.

He is achingly beautiful, and it makes Pat’s chest hurt in a way he really, really wishes it didn’t.

Pat looks at the floor instead of at the waves of Brian’s brown hair, though the grubby tiles are nowhere near comparably interesting to look at. Their train pulls up, and Pat follows a half-step behind Brian. It has gotten surprisingly late, so the car is sparsely populated and they can sit. Brian glances sideways at Pat, as though he might want to say something, but can’t work up the nerve.

Pat can’t either, not even to ask what’s on his mind. His heart is in his throat for reasons he doesn’t quite want to articulate to himself. He settles back in his seat, trying in vain to be more comfortable in a situation that is a little uncomfortable, but not for how he’s sitting.

Finally, after the next stop, Brian speaks. “You, uh, up to anything next weekend?”

“Not that I can anticipate, unless Allegra makes me be sociable for the third week in a row.”

Brian gives a short laugh. “Well, barring that, if you want to, you could come by next Saturday?”

“Yeah,” Pat says, “yeah, for sure.”

Brian’s smile lights up some dark, anxious place inside Pat’s chest, somehow easing its tension and grabbing it tighter simultaneously.

Oh, he is so fucked.


	2. ii°.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> theres some fun visual stuff ive figured out how to do starting in this chapter so make sure you have work skins enabled!! (they are enabled by default unless youve turned them off lol)

Monday arrives with little fanfare. Pat makes it in just after nine, as per usual, undercaffeinated and overtired. Brian is by Pat’s desk, waiting for him to get there, his lab goggles perched on top of his head as he reads something on his phone.

“Hey,” Pat says, and Brian looks up at him, already smiling.

“Morning, Pat! Ready to do this thing?”

“As I’ll ever be. Give me a sec to get myself together.”

Brian takes a step back to give Pat some space as he drops his bag on his chair, rummages through it to get his own goggles and coat, gets his tablet and whatever other miscellany he thinks he’ll need, so he doesn’t need to drag his ass back and forth all the way from the lab. Upon the realization that he can’t bring his coffee in with him, he sighs and considers his need for caffeination. It wins out over his better judgment and he drains about a third of his portable mug in one; thankfully, it’s cooled off enough that he doesn’t burn his entire tongue. Brian is pretending politely not to have witnessed this, but Pat sees him biting his lip against a snicker as he looks dedicatedly at his phone.

Pat grimaces. He pulls his goggles over his head, letting them hang around his neck, and scoops up his things. “Alright, let’s go.”

Brian jumps to attention, dropping his phone into his pocket and grabbing his own stack of tablet and papers. He and Pat fall in step side-by-side.

“You do anything fun this weekend?” Brian says, unable to let silence hang between them.

“Not really. You were present for the most exciting part of it, honestly. You?”

“Fair enough,” Brian says, with that crooked half-smile. “Yeah, I didn’t do much either, just… uh, mostly just doing some background research on stuff for this week,” he admits, a little sheepishly.

“Terrible. You never stop, do you?”

“No, not really,” Brian says, with a sideways glance at Pat and a smile that seems a trace more sly than it has any real right to be.

Pat shakes his head fondly as he scans his badge and hip-checks the door to the lab open. Clayton looks up from what he’s doing to give them a friendly wave, then turns back to his equipment. The two of them set up on the opposite side of the room, at a table next to the shiny new anti-mass spectrometer, carefully making sure that they have everything they need before they get started on anything. Pat puts his hair up, a little less sloppily than usual, and pulls his goggles up onto his face. He props his tablet up with the diagrams on the screen, for convenient reference, and Brian pulls up a spreadsheet.

They both look at the machine for a beat of silence; Pat takes a determined breath, sighs it out.

“First things first, let’s turn the dang thing on,” he says, and Brian laughs and fumbles for the switch. It whirs to life, yellow beams of light from top to bottom, green lights and data readouts lighting up. Everything’s set to zero, all traces of Simone and Jenna’s Friday project gone, ready for them to get this show on the road.

The samples they’re studying arrived last week, and they’re stored in these real fancy lockers with electronic locks. It’s some serious business. Classified origin. Only two locations in the country have access to this. So Pat won’t lie, he’s nervous when he takes out the first sample, a pebble-sized crystal, colored similarly to a piece of amber, except it reflects light so oddly that it almost seems to glow. He can’t resist turning it over in his hand, looking at it, and Brian leans over to inspect it as well.

“Cool,” Brian says. And, yeah, fuck, it sure is, dude. Pat hands it over and he, too, takes a moment to study it before he puts it into the machine.

They hardly chat as they work; they’re too busy reading out data and taking notes and keeping track of results, and the day flies by. It feels as though they’ve barely started by the time they pack up and leave.

“We didn’t even take a lunch, gosh,” Brian remarks, as they leave the building together.

“Better not make a habit of that, or else Allegra will personally kick my ass,” Pat says. When they’re not both too busy simultaneously being disasters, they’re pretty good at calling each other out when they’re not taking care of themselves. Usually.

But the next day seems to slip by as quickly as the first, both of them completely absorbed in their work. It is only when, on Wednesday, Simone and Allegra physically come to the lab to wheedle them into accompanying them to their favorite nearby cafe that they manage to be shaken from their focus. Pat feels a little discombobulated all through lunch, feeling like he’s got some thought at the tip of his tongue that he can’t quite articulate. Brian seems equally spacey, uncharacteristically lost in thought unless directly addressed.

“Remind me to never hang out with y’all when you’re in science mode, jeez,” Allegra huffs, as they walk back. “You’re both, like, in the next freakin’ dimension or something.”

“Like you’re any better when you’re in the middle of a big project,” Pat points out.

“Okay, you know what, whatever,” she says, mock-affronted, and makes a face at him. He wrinkles his nose in response, until they both predictably break character into laughter.

Brian still seems to be a bit elsewhere until they return to the lab. Then, focus and clarity turn to his wide dark eyes, and he’s fully present again. Pat imagines it must have been very interesting to room with him while he was in school, alternating between absent and distant and his usual bright brilliant jovial self as his drive waxes and wanes with his projects.

As the week presses on, Pat finds himself constantly preoccupied with his work, even when not physically present in the lab. He can tell from Brian’s demeanor that he is feeling much the same; he’s intensely focused in the lab and distractible outside of it. It feels like they’re on the edge of something, on the tip of a breakthrough, just shy of finding the final puzzle piece and everything clicking into perfect clarity.

When he’s home, he’s reading every article he can get his hands on, double- and triple-checking his notes, barely pulling his nose out of what he’s reading enough to make dinner. He may, possibly, be worrying his roommate, who Thursday night all but drags Pat out of his room to eat dinner with him. He asks Pat questions about work instead, indulging him even though he knows very little about science. Pat appreciates it. He tries to return the favor, but as hard as he tries and as much as it makes him look like an asshole, he can’t seem to focus on his roommate’s story about the article he’s working on.

He’s swept up in this whirlwind with Brian, with every part of his being so dedicated to this project. They have pages upon pages of notes, of data, and when they’re not in the lab making more of it, they’re at computers analyzing it and trying to make everything make sense.

It doesn’t really make sense, is the thing.

Pat’s seen it happen, in real life, now, not just the simulations he and Brian had made before. Sometimes, there’ll be a flash of green light and the readouts go _wild_ and for the life of them they cannot figure out what it _means_.

Pat leans down and gently rests his forehead on the desk. He groans performatively, to make Brian laugh. Brian pats Pat’s shoulder sympathetically.

“We’re gonna figure this out, Pat. We’ve got this.”

“It is giving me all the headaches. You know I can hardly sleep lately? All I can do is think about this. It’s driving my roommate up the wall. I swear he’s gonna kick me out if he finds me in the living room doing research at three in the morning one more time.”

“Oh, god, same, though! Laura — that’s my sister, we live together — has threatened me with _social activities_ if I don’t, and I quote, ‘chill the fuck out and think about something else for one second.’”

“Sounds like pretty much every person who’s interacted with me since I went into physics.”

Brian laughs. “Yeah, pretty much. She’s dragging me out with our other roommate and some friends tonight.” He makes a face, then brightens. “You want to come? I’m sure she wouldn’t mind, she’d probably be thrilled to see real evidence that I have friends.”

The mere idea of spending an evening with a group of people Brian’s age that Pat doesn’t know sends a spike of anxiety down his spine. He can hardly interact with his _coworkers_ outside of work, let alone a bunch of surely-cool people in their mid-twenties who all know how to hold a conversation like human beings.

Brian must see some of this on Pat’s face, because he hastens to add: “No pressure, though, I totally get it if you don’t want to go out with a bunch of strangers, hah.”

“Honestly, I kind of want to try and get an early night tonight. Catch up on that sleep I haven’t been getting. I appreciate it, though. Maybe some other time when I’m not being a boring old man.”

Brian swats his arm. “You are not old!”

“Whatever.” He’s smiling a little, though, and Brian smiles back.

Saturday dawns with a jolt as Pat remembers he’d made plans with Brian. Was that really a week ago? It seems as though no time has passed at all, and yet so much all at once. He flicks through the notifications on his phone; no text from Brian confirming anything. Well, it’s early yet, and he had been out the previous night.

So Pat spends the day puttering around as per usual, with a side of fretting himself out of texting Brian first. What if it’s weird to text him? He hasn’t hung out with anyone but Allegra in ages, and usually she texts about a half-hour before she gets to his place, informing him that she will be there whether he likes it or not and telling him to take a shower first, please do NOT be gross when I get there, Patrick!!!

He is fully aware that he is being ridiculous. That he is acting like a teenager with a crush. That he is checking his phone far too often to be sensible. That he is overanalyzing text message politics, something he thought he was surely too old for.

But the hours drip by and a text never comes.

He finally hits his breaking point that evening, figuring Brian must have forgotten.

Brian  
  
**Today** 7:18 PM  
Hey just seeing if we were still on for today. If not that’s totally cool just checking in  
  


He tosses his phone, ringer on maximum, to the other end of his bed and then flops facedown onto his pillows. Embarrassment is already beginning to curdle in his chest. Like he’s being needy, or annoying, or —

_Jesus._

He rolls his eyes at himself and sighs angrily and pushes his face hard into his pillow. He’s being a dumbass, is what he’s doing, and wildly overthinking.

He rolls over onto his back and pushes his glasses up onto his forehead and presses his palms to his closed eyes.

“He probably forgot. Fuckin’ chill, Patrick, you’ll see him Monday at work,” he mutters to himself.

And a text doesn’t come, and a text doesn’t come, and a text doesn’t come.

The room gets darker. The streetlights, so many feet below, turn on. Pat sets his glasses aside and lets his eyes close.

Pat nearly falls out of bed at the shrill full-volume klaxon of his ringtone. His eyes bleary, his hands fumbling, he feels for his phone in the dark room. He unearths it from the rumpled blankets at the foot of his bed.

2:34 AM | Battery 37%

Incoming Call:

**Brian David Gilbert**

Accept | Decline

He presses accept before he can think about it.

“H’lo?”

“Pat! Patrick, oh thank god, I was so sure you’d be asleep.”

“I was. I prob’ly still am. The fuck are you calling for in the middle of the night?”

“You’re the only person I _could_ call, you’re the only one who gets this, oh my god, Pat, Pat _Gill_, I figured it out, I figured _everything_ out, I need you here, please?”

Pat is stunned into silence, his tired brain struggling to process the words that Brian is saying in this desperate tone. He finally manages, “Are you at work? What the fuck?”

“Yes, yes, I am, can you come? I know it’s late, I’m so sorry, but please, I really need you here, I’ve made a breakthrough. I need to show you this. I don’t want to do this without you. Please, Pat?”

“Jesus,” Pat says. He’s not sure if he’s reacting more to the situation as a whole or Brian’s breathless _please, Pat_. Fucking dumbass brain, too asleep to think about anything _rational_.

“Don’t hang up —”

“I wasn’t going to, Brian, I’m just trying to catch up. I was asleep, my brain’s not working yet.” He shakes his head, trying to clear it. “You want me at the lab?”

“Yes,” Brian says, emphatically.

And there’s no way Pat could say no to that.

“Be there in — no more’n a half-hour. ‘Kay? Just hold your horses, alright?”

“Yes. Yes, definitely. My horses are held. Thank you, Pat, really, thank you so much —”

“Don’t mention it. See you soon.”

“See you soon.”

The line goes dead.

Pat sits there for a moment in silence, staring at the lockscreen. He takes a deep breath, steels himself, and then goes to make himself presentable.

He makes it there by three, swipes his ID to get in, and as soon as he gets through the front doors he’s quite nearly bowled over by an overly enthusiastic Dr. Gilbert. Brian grabs his arm. His eyes are so wide. The room is lit dimly, with just the five or so panels of lights in the ceiling that don’t have an off switch. Brian looks almost haunted, in the faint orange-yellow fluorescent light, those dark shadows under his eyes in jarring contrast to his pale face, his hair mussed and wild around the goggles perched on top of his head, the still-red indents from the goggles drawing a mask around his eyes.

Pat braces himself to keep Brian’s momentum from knocking them both sideways, his hand against Brian’s shoulder, an equal opposite force.

“Okay, okay, alright, so, you’ve got me here now, at ass o’clock AM on a Saturday night. What on Earth is going on, Brian?”

“Come on, I gotta show you,” Brian says, leading Pat by the arm. He goes willingly, if not a trifle suspiciously.

“Are you, like — are you okay?”

Brian pushes the door to the lab open with a clatter, snaps his goggles back over his eyes. Pat sighs and rummages through his bag to get his own. Safety first, even at three in the goddamn morning. Brian continues to not reply as he leads Pat over to their workstation. The spectrometer is still powered on, despite it having been unsupervised for as long as Brian was away from it, which is _definitely_ breaking the rules. Pat supposes at this point, though — whatever “this point” might entail — it might not actually matter.

Brian looks up at Pat expectantly, but Pat doesn’t know what he’s trying to expect from him. He raises his eyebrows in response and gestures wordlessly to the device in front of them, expecting Brian to show him whatever it is that has driven him to this strange behavior in the dead of night.

Brian clears his throat. He looks a little shaky, dittery, in a way that is downright concerning the longer Pat looks at him.

“Brian,” Pat says softly, “hey, look at me. Seriously.” He does, big dark eyes catching the yellow light of the machine. “Are you okay? You look — Brian, no offense, you look — a little fucked up, please tell me you’re not, like, on anything right now —”

“No! No, I’m not, I promise I’m not, I wouldn’t — especially not at the _lab_ — no — I’m okay, really, Pat, I’m fine, I swear. I, fuck, I might be having a little bit of a panic attack, actually?”

“Oh. That’d — that would explain it.” The wide eyes and the shaky hands and the strange tense keyed-up demeanor are at least symptoms of something that Pat is much, much more equipped to deal with, in that case.

“Sorry. I, uh, sorry, this really is weird, huh? Shit. I’m sorry.”

Pat wants to reach out and soothe him, but he doesn’t know if touching him would make it worse. Or if he’s even, like, allowed to, or if that would be weird. He speaks as gently as he can, instead. “Hey, no, don’t worry, it’s okay. If anything’s going on, I’m glad I’m here. Show me what’s happening.”

Brian closes his eyes and takes a deep, shaky breath. He sighs it out and blinks several times, as though trying to recalibrate himself.

“Okay,” Brian says. “Okay.” There’s one of the samples sitting on the table next to the spectrometer, though notably not one of the ones they’ve been working with in the past week. It’s about double the size of the ones from before; some fucked-up marble-sized golden shard of crystal. It catches the light strangely, absorbing it and reflecting it in ways it seems as though it shouldn’t. They’re weird fuckin’ rocks, this Xenium — that’s what it’s actually called, though usually Pat just writes down the number on the label when he’s taking notes. He’s here for particulars, not the grand picture.

“I know we were waiting on these ones until we were more sure of what exactly is going on, but — I was noticing a trend. The more pure the sample — the less organic material that’s in it — the wilder this thing goes,” he says, patting the screen on the spectrometer. “I’ve got all the safety precautions on, Pat, stop making that face. It’s totally safe. I mean, I guess it couldn’t hurt if we started taking a little more precaution in case of radiation, because it’s not totally impossible that there could be some —” He cuts himself off, waving a hand. “That’s beside the point. We can check that out and deal with it when it’s not right now.”

Pat raises his eyebrows.

“Yeah, I know, I know, okay, I’m getting to my point.” He places the sample in the machine, makes sure everything is properly situated, green lights lit up for all the safety mechanisms. He looks at Pat, biting his lip nervously. Pat steps over, closing the distance between them to stand at his side, shoulder to shoulder. He watches Brian’s thumb press down on the start switch.

And then he looks up, and he understands everything.

The crystal glows gold. It’s like nothing Pat has ever seen before. It’s not reflecting the light of the room, or the machine. It’s glowing from within, brilliant and crackling with some sort of energy.

When the beam from the spectrometer touches it, it becomes almost blinding. Pat quite nearly winces away from the flash of light, but he can’t tear his gaze away. The afterimage stays in Pat’s eyes as the light dims, but it’s still not done. There are flickers of what look like tiny streaks of lightning, gold and green, rapidfire, touching the glass like some sort of plasma ball.

It is beautiful.

It is terrifying.

With a loud, shrill beep that makes Pat flinch, one of the safety mechanisms activates, and within a matter of seconds the equipment shuts itself down. The lightning, the light, are gone nearly as quickly as they’d appeared, and the crystal returns to normal — as normal as the strange thing had looked, anyway.

Pat turns to Brian, who is watching him intently.

“Brian David Gilbert,” Pat says weakly, “what the fuck was that?”

“Patrick Gill,” Brian replies, “that’s why I called you.”

An indeterminate amount of time later, they sit sprawled on the floor of the lab, surrounded by papers and their respective necessary technology, laptops and tablets and calculators. Brian has a pen tucked behind his ear and is scrawling something in a notebook in pencil, eyebrows furrowed, intermittently punching things into his calculator and muttering things indecipherable to Pat. One of his sleeves is pushed up — the other has fallen back down to his wrist — and his right arm has pencil dust and ink stains to the elbow. Their frenzied conversations and theorizing faded out nearly an hour ago. Now they’re just trying to make any kind of sense out of it.

The clock above the door informs Pat that it is well after five in the morning. He sits up straight and twists to crack his back, then winces at how loud the sound is, in a room where the only other sounds are the faint humming of machinery and the scratch of Brian’s pencil against paper. He rubs his face, drags his hands back through his hair. When he looks up again, Brian is watching him, his expression unguarded, his lips parted slightly, as though about to speak.

They hang there in the moment, just looking at each other, for an amount of time that would be far too long during daylight hours.

Pat is the first to drop his gaze. He looks down at the mess of papers and notes and suddenly feels overwhelmed, in the way he does when his thoughts start to shut down and anxiety starts to snake its first overeager threads in.

“We should go home,” Pat says, breaking the long-held silence. “Get some rest. Come back to this with a clear head.” He’s so fucking tired. He can’t imagine how much more exhausted Brian, who hasn’t slept at all, must be. Brian, who from the sound of it does this sort of thing fairly regularly. Brian, with his bright warm smile that directs attention away from the exhaustion writ clear across his face.

“You’re right,” Brian says softly. He sighs. “I — god. I can’t think about anything else.” There’s a hint of a nervous tremor in his voice. “I can’t sleep, lately, I — my mind won’t settle. I don’t know why.”

Only due to the lateness of the hour, his exhaustion preventing him from filtering himself, Pat says, “You could come back to my place, if you want? Not — I mean — like — you know, just so you’re not alone. If that’d help. If you want.” He tries very hard not to grimace at himself, at the stuttering that gives him away more than anything.

Brian studies him, surprised but — interested? “Alright. I think you’re closer, anyway.” He closes his notebook, starts to put his things away, and then suddenly jerks his head up, eyes wide. “Shit, I totally ditched you today, didn’t I?”

“It’s okay,” Pat says quickly. “I figured you had important stuff going on. Which you definitely did. It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay,” Brian says, not looking entirely convinced, pressing his lips together in what’s either frustration at himself or disbelief at Pat. “I, uh. Well. If you’re fine with that, then, yeah, I — I think that’d be good.”

“Let’s clean up this mess and head out, then.” Pat hauls himself to his feet, wincing when his knee protests, and leans down to gather his things. Brian follows suit, gathering his mess of papers — Pat’s never seen anyone keep so many handwritten notes, good grief — and soon enough they are ready to go.

Both of them still have the indents of their lab goggles on their faces, a fact that makes Brian giggle when he points it out to Pat.

“It’s the new fashion. Scientists everywhere agree,” Pat deadpans, which does nothing to stop Brian’s laughter.

The very first hints of the Sunday dawn grace the sky as they walk outside.

“Jeez Louise,” Brian mutters. “I really gotta stop staying up all night.”

“I’ll say,” Pat says. Brian huffs at him; Pat smiles back.

They aren’t overly chatty on the train, both of them too worn out and too preoccupied for small talk. It’s not until they get into Pat’s apartment and take off their outerwear that the predicament of the situation occurs to him: where is Brian going to sleep?

“Uh,” Pat says. “You can borrow something to sleep in, if you want. I can take the couch and you can have my bed?”

Brian, who has been curiously peering around the apartment, looks between the couch in question (a beat-up loveseat) and Pat (a nearly six-foot-tall man). He squints at Pat.

“Really?” he says, dryly.

“I’ve slept on it before,” Pat says, and leaves out ‘accidentally’ and ‘while studying’ and ‘Jesus Christ my back hurt like hell the next day.’

The look on Brian’s face informs Pat that he picks up this subtext, but he politely drops it for the moment and says, “Alright, let’s take a look at those pajamas.”

Pat is hit with a sudden, horrific wave of awkwardness as he leads Brian down the hall to his room. He opens the door to his room and is reminded how badly he needs to clean; there are clothes strewn about on most of the surfaces in the room, no less than four empty mugs, and his bedding is thrown about as though someone had been woken up in the middle of the night by their probably-manic coworker or something.

Brian makes no comment on any of this; instead, he politely looks at the few posters on Pat’s wall, the pictures on his dresser, as Pat rummages through his dresser for something suitable for Brian.

“Is this your sister?”

Pat follows Brian’s line of sight, to a picture on his desk. “Yeah, that’s when I graduated, uh, most recently.”

“You guys look a lot alike.”

“Thanks. She’s a lot cooler than me.”

“Aww, I doubt that! Don’t put yourself down, Pat.”

“Ah. You sound just like Allegra. All I’m saying is that she could suplex me if she wanted to, which is pretty much my definition of cool, I think. Here, this work for you?” Pat says, handing over a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants.

“Thank you,” Brian says. “I, uh, don’t mind sharing, you know. There’s space.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, totally. Can I use your bathroom?”

“‘Course. It’s across the hall.”

Brian slips out of the room and leaves Pat to his racing heartbeat. He shakes himself out of it and quickly changes into a different clean t-shirt and a pair of soft green flannel pants he reserves specifically for when he wants to be extra comfortable. Now certainly seems an appropriate time for some extra comfort. As an afterthought, he quickly tosses his blankets back into some semblance of organization, plops his pillows into a neat line at the head of the bed.

Brian returns a few minutes later, shuffling in sleepily. “I stole your mouthwash. Or possibly your roommate’s,” he informs Pat.

“Fair enough. Be right back. Feel free to, y’know, get settled or whatever.”

“Okay,” Brian says, with a small smile.

Pat retreats. With the bathroom door closed behind him, he stares at himself in the mirror, meets his own eyes in slightly-panicked dismay.

What the fuck has he gotten himself into?

His hair is a disaster; it was in a ponytail at some point, but the hair tie has long since vanished. He has shadows beneath his eyes that could start to rival Brian’s if he’s not careful. He wants very badly to shower. He wants even more badly to sleep.

Brian is curled up like a comfortable cat on Pat’s bed when he returns, seemingly having no hesitations about making himself perfectly at home in Pat’s blankets. He’s leaning against the wall, at the midpoint between sitting up and lying down. He glances up from his phone when Pat comes in, gives him a quick smile, then returns his attention to whatever he is looking at.

Pat slides under the covers next to him, stays sitting up, tries not to telegraph his awkwardness too much, carefully leaves a respectable amount of space between them. He puts his phone on his nightstand, and then doesn’t have anything to do with his hands, and reaches over to pick it back up, and then changes his mind again.

He glances over quickly to make sure Brian hasn’t seen this weird twitchy bout of indecision. He doesn’t seem to have; he’s still focused on his phone.

“Reading something good?”

“Just playing a game,” Brian says, and clicks the screen off, so his face is no longer illuminated. “Lost the level anyway.”

“Aw, man. Well, don’t stay up all night gaming, okay?”

“I’ll try,” Brian says, a small warm smile gracing his lips. He slides down beneath the covers, snuggling so deep into them that all Pat can see are his eyes, dark but catching a glint of the predawn light through the windows. “Night, Pat.”

“Night, Brian.”

Pat lays down, not brave enough to face him any longer. He closes his eyes and tries to think of anything other than the brilliant, incredible man at his back, just a foot away. And just like trying not to think of a pink elephant, it is impossible to think about anything else, especially when he can hear him softly sigh and wriggle around beneath the covers to get comfortable and —

Just go to sleep, Patrick. Just go to sleep.

When Pat wakes up, the room is bright with sunlight and he’s still achingly tired, all the way down to his bones. He groans and drags his hands down his face, rubs the sleep out of his eyes, squints one eye open against the light to check the time on his phone.

1:27 PM | Battery 2%

He hears movement next to him and nearly jumps out of his skin in surprise, eyes snapping open, but it is just Brian. Brian, who is still apparently completely dead to the world, who sighs in his sleep and burrows deeper into the pillows.

Pat is knocked breathless for a moment at the sight of him.

He looks away quickly, though, uncomfortable staring at Brian while he’s sleeping, not wanting to be fuckin’ creepy, and carefully gets up so as not to disturb him. He plugs in his phone and assesses the situation, then goes to his desk and grabs a pad of sticky notes.

_Brian -_   
_Taking a shower. If you’re hungry nothing’s really off-limits in the kitchen. Roommate might be home but he’s chill, prob won’t bug you._   
_Pat_

He leaves the note on the nightstand and pads out of the room. He feels like his brain is working through thick fog. Between the wild incredible _thing_ he bore witness to last night, the pages and pages of math and writing afterwards, the interrupted sleep schedule, and the quiet longing of having Brian David Gilbert in his bed, it’s no wonder he’s discombobulated.

He tries not to linger too long, not wanting Brian to have to feel like an awkward intruder going through the house or the kitchen alone — a feeling Pat has experienced plenty — but the hot water feels so nice on the tense muscles on his back and neck.

When he finally gets out, the mirror is fully steamed over. He wraps a towel around his waist and brushes his teeth, runs a brush through his hair, and turns around to get his clothes to get dressed —

Ah. He has not brought clothes to get dressed in.

Maybe Brian will be asleep still, or in the kitchen, and if he goes really fast he won’t even run into him. He re-secures the towel around his hips and opens the door, ready to dart into the hallway, and nearly crashes headlong into none other than his very own houseguest, who yelps in surprise.

“Oh! Pat! Pat Gill, hello! Sorry! You surprised me! Sorry, I’ll get out of your way!” Brian speaks quickly and dodges to the opposite side of the wall. His face is bright red.

Pat winces. “Sorry. Thought you were still asleep. Forgot clothes. I’m done in there, you can shower if you want. My stuff’s on the top shelf, if you want to use it.”

“Oh! Okay. Thank you,” Brian says, still a little high-pitched, in alarm or embarrassment, his face still a little flushed. Pat is sure he himself is blushing all the way down to his chest. He turns away and goes to his room at a pace that is just shy of “fleeing.”

He wants to flop facedown on his bed and marinate in his embarrassment forever, but he is fairly certain that some wild chain of events would transpire were he to do that and Brian would see his ass or something. So he gets dressed instead. He hears the shower turn on, and, figuring Brian might find himself in a similar situation as Pat just has, he leaves a new note on the nightstand:

_B -_   
_If you need something to wear I promise everything in the dresser and hanging up in the closet is clean lol_   
_\- P_

He feels a little dumb about it, once he writes it. Like he’s in fucking middle school, passing notes to a crush or something. Which, well. He’d thought he’d aged past that, too.

He scrubs his towel over his head, attempting to dry his hair so it at least doesn’t drip all over his shirt, and brushes it quickly and halfheartedly. He hangs his towel off the doorknob and clears out of his room to go find something to eat.

By the time Brian emerges into the kitchen, Pat has scraped together the best of his cooking abilities (and, more importantly, the available ingredients) and is putting the last of a batch of pancakes onto a plate. He glances over his shoulder at the sound of Brian’s footsteps. Brian still looks worn out, but in a less disastrous way than the previous night. His hair is damp, falling in waves across his forehead, and he gives Pat an impossibly charming, sort of sheepish smile. He’s wearing one of Pat’s sweaters and his own jeans. The sight of him does something funny to Pat’s chest.

“Hey,” Pat says, eloquently.

“Hey,” Brian says back. “Are you sharing?”

“No, I’m going to eat all these goddamn pancakes by myself in front of my guest. Of course I’m sharing, come sit. You want something to drink?”

“Water would be good. Coffee would be better.”

Pat goes above and beyond and delivers both, since he’s already made coffee and it’s not as though water is in short supply, and sinks into the chair across from Brian.

“I hope I didn’t snore or anything,” Brian says, that joking half-smile playing at his lips.

“Hah, no, or if you did, I didn’t hear it. I was fuckin’ out, man.”

“Me too, jeez. I really appreciate you letting me stay, I was… kind of really in a state, huh?”

“A little bit. I’m glad you called me, I — I’m glad I saw that, first of all, it was — it was incredible. But also, like, I’m glad you weren’t alone? If that makes sense?”

“No, yeah, it — thank you, Pat. Really. That, uh. Means a lot to me.”

Pat, a bit self-conscious, gives a mild shrug. “Of course. I wouldn’t leave you hanging like that, that’d be pretty shitty of me. Plus, like, I totally get the anxiety thing, and you sounded way freaked out on the phone.”

“Yeah. I — really was. I mean. You saw what happened. I was by myself the first time I saw it. I didn’t know what to do? And — okay, you’re gonna think I’m crazy —”

“I would never.”

“Okay, like, I mean, our whole job is talking all this theory about dimensions and stuff, right? But no one’s ever, like, gotten there. Not in practice. But we’ve got all the models and theories to show what it would be like, if we could. And we ran all those numbers last night, and you must’ve seen it, I mean, you’re brilliant — that’s closer than I think anyone’s ever gotten.”

“Yeah. Fuck. Yeah, I saw that too.” Pat runs a hand through his hair. “We are going to have so very many goddamn things to explain to everyone.”

“God, yeah. Jeez. Is it weird to like — want to not think about it for a while? It — this is going to sound so childish but it, like… scares me a little?”

“No, me too, it’s — it’s a lot to take in. I think you’re completely within your rights to be freaked out. God knows I am.” Pat pauses. “Do you want to just… I dunno, play video games or something? I mean, we’ve both been working way too goddamn hard lately, and I feel like we could both benefit from a little bit of time to just, like, process all of it. Take some time away. It’ll probably help, even, we might come back to it tomorrow and everything will make more sense.”

“Pat Gill, there is truly and honestly nothing I would like better right now.”

They traipse to the living room after breakfast, and Pat rummages around trying to find something suitably multiplayer. He finds a _Smash Bros._ game for a platform several console generations old. When Pat starts it up, Brian laughs, and Pat turns to look questioningly at him.

“That’s the first _Smash_ game I ever played,” Brian says.

“Do you have to make me feel old every time I talk to you!”

“I mean, to be fair, I started on it pretty late.”

Pat squints at him suspiciously, and hands over a controller. He plops down on the opposite end of the couch from Brian.

They bicker over who gets to play what character, as they are inclined towards similar favorites, but settle on a compromise easily enough. Brian even plays video games with the same focus and intent as he does everything else, throwing all his energy and passion behind it. Pat doesn’t know why he’s surprised. He talks to Pat, teasing him about his skills whether they are better or worse than his own; he sings, half to himself; he spouts whatever random thought happens to cross his mind; but his eyes barely leave the screen during rounds unless he is laughing too hard to play or if he must send a particularly wicked smirk or wink in Pat’s direction.

The tragic fact of the situation is that Brian is leagues better at the game than Pat, who has barely touched it since he first got it, long before his postgrad. Pat improves as they go, though, and manages to eventually somewhat hold his own against him.

They’re tied, two to two, the winner of the match wins the game. They’re both shouting and laughing as they meet each other blow for blow.

“Fuck!” Brian squawks, as Pat pushes his character to the edge of the stage, gearing up for a finishing move which Brian has no good counter for. “No you don’t Pat — Patrick — fuck you _nope!”_

He plucks the controller right out of Pat’s hands. Pat’s cry of outrage is matched equally by Brian’s shout of triumph. Pat lunges across the couch, laughing, to try and grab his controller back from a cackling Brian, who throws himself backwards against the arm on his end of the couch and holds Pat’s controller as far away from him as his arms can reach.

“You cheater! I can’t believe you, what a horrible meta-game strategy, you are the worst I cannot _believe_ you have done this,” Pat is saying through laughter as he tries to reach across a squirming Brian to get his controller back, half-climbing across his lap as Brian giggles hysterically. In the skirmish, Brian’s actual controller, forgotten, clatters to the ground. The sound is followed by the announcer’s voice calling _Game!_

They both freeze in place and look up at the screen as Pat’s character comes up as the winner.

“Fuck!” says Brian, as Pat says, “Hah! Serves you right!”

He turns back to look at Brian and immediately very abruptly comes back to awareness of his body and the situation and very specifically the fact that he is halfway on top of Brian, both of them breathless and flushed from laughter. They’re still frozen in place, staring wide-eyed at each other now. The atmosphere has shifted dramatically from what it was mere seconds before, something strange and tense and heavy between them now. Brian visibly swallows, his eyes darting across Pat’s face, almost nervous. Does Pat imagine it, or does he linger at Pat’s lips?

_Fuck._

Pat is, as he always is, the first to break. He clears his throat and crawls backwards across the couch out of Brian’s space. Brian gives Pat a tiny, sheepish smile and hands his controller back. Pat is still reeling as he accepts it from him. He opens his mouth to say something — god only knows what — but is interrupted by Brian’s phone going off. Brian glances at it and sighs.

“My sister wants to know if I’ve been eaten by the science monsters yet.”

“Tell her not to get her hopes up, you’ve survived them this long.”

“Hey! Mean!”

Pat grins at him. Brian makes a face back, then sighs again.

“I probably should get going. I have some errands to run and stuff I gotta take care of before work tomorrow, ugh. Adulting.” Brian rolls his eyes.

“Oof, me too, come to think of it.” He’s gotta get cat litter, yikes.

“Thanks for letting me stay over and hang out, though, Pat. It was fun! We should do this more.”

“Yeah, for sure,” says Pat, biting the true extent of his hopes back with a smile. Brian smiles back, genuine, sweet, just for Pat. No awkwardness lingers from him, and Pat is grateful to let whatever the fuck just happened wash away.

Brian leaves after gathering his things, still wearing Pat’s sweater, with a little wave and a cheerful _see you tomorrow, Pat Gill!_

“See you,” Pat echoes, as the door closes behind him.

He goes back to his room and sits down on the edge of the bed. He can’t stop replaying in his mind being half-pressed against Brian, breathless, something intangible hovering between them, even if only for a moment.

He groans and flips over to faceplant into his pillows.

God damn it. They smell like Brian.


	3. III.

They have the lab to themselves, more often than not, with only the occasional exception of Clayton, and today is no different. Brian perches on a stool, drumming a pen on his notebook, chewing his lip pensively. Pat stands facing him, leaning his hip against the table, arms crossed. Brian looks up at him, peering through two layers of glasses and goggle.

“So how are we gonna do this? Are telling them, or are we waiting? Because if we’re telling them, we need to get a presentation together. If we’re holding off, we need a damn good reason just in case, and then we need to figure out what the hell is actually going on,” Brian says.

“I mean, I figured we were going to tell Tara?”

Brian pulls a face at that, which is surprising, but he chases it off quickly with a neutral expression. “Okay. How do we explain it, then? Oh, no big deal, Dr. Long, it’s just that we think we might have found a way to rip open entryways into other dimensions, we’re totally not crazy or anything.”

“Hard sell, maybe, but if anyone can do it it’s probably you.”

Brian laughs. “I’m flattered, Pat, but really. I’m not sure if that’s a good idea yet.”

“Okay, pros and cons.” Pat ticks them off on his fingers as he talks. “Pros: we might get more assistance or funding or equipment; more people thinking about it means more perspectives; Tara will continue to be really fucking pleased at us for being so good at things. Cons: hard to explain, I guess? What else?”

Brian again makes a face that he doesn’t seem to be able to keep himself from making. Something between annoyed and irritated and frustrated — but then it’s gone again, almost as quickly as before. “It just — it seems — I just kind of want to be more sure, I guess, before we get anyone else involved. I mean, we don’t know that much, and I don’t want us to look bad in front of all our peers or our boss when we can’t conclusively explain what’s going on.”

Pat shifts so he’s sitting on the table. He’s not really technically supposed to, but he’s skinny and they’re the only ones there. “Fair enough, but also to be fair, we were never gonna be able to have anything even remotely approaching a conclusive explanation, especially not this early on. Also, Tara’s the best. I know it’s intimidating to tell your boss about something you don’t fully understand — god knows I’ve been there plenty — especially since, well, Tara can be kind of intimidating anyway. But, like, she really genuinely gives a shit about everyone here. She’s as driven to finding understanding as any of us are. I totally get that you’re nervous. I really do think, though, that telling her is our best way forward.”

Brian’s eyebrows draw together; his lips purse. He sighs and drops his pen onto his notebook, then looks up at Pat again.

“She wouldn’t take the project from us — or would she?” Brian says. Clearly this is the burning question; he has picked up the pen again and is now anxiously clicking it.

“Nah, I really don’t think so. We’ve gotten this far, I don’t think she’d kick us off it. She doesn’t really take on research projects herself, and that’s the only way I could see it being reassigned. She’s got enough on her plate without having to spend a thousand years running numbers and doing shit in the lab.”

Brian looks somewhat, but not entirely, assured by this. He stops clicking his pen, settling instead for twirling it between his fingers. Pat leans forward a little, elbow on his knee, chin in his hand. When he speaks again, it is more softly and more gently.

“Is that what you’re worried about?”

Brian won’t meet his eyes. He is watching the pen as it moves. “Yeah,” he says. “That probably sounds super selfish, but… I just feel so strongly about this. I want to see it through.”

“I hear you. It’s the first big project you’re in charge of and it’s a huge fucking deal to boot. I’m nervous too. But, hey,” he says, shifting a little to try and meet Brian’s eyes. This time, Brian’s gaze does flick up to his face. “I’ve got your back in this. As I’m sure you’ve got mine. We’re not in this alone. We’re a team, and we’re part of an even bigger team that really, honestly, seriously supports each other. You’re not going to be shut out of this by any stretch of the imagination. You’re fucking brilliant, Brian. If anyone’s gonna get this, it’s you.”

A ghost of a smile passes across Brian’s face. “Thanks, Pat,” he says quietly. “I appreciate it.”

“‘Course. Anytime.” Pat pauses. “You ready to put together that presentation?”

Brian glances away, then back up at Pat. He is smiling, but the slight crease between his eyebrows shows it takes some effort. “Yeah, let’s do it.”

Pat hops off the table, pulls up a chair of his own, and the two of them lean over their notes and start to pick out what they need to say.

Pat has a meeting with Jenna and Simone after lunch; the two of them are working with some of the more theoretical stuff that Pat and Brian first drew up. Pat leaves Brian to it in the lab and the three of them take over one of the small meeting rooms.

Simone and Jenna are an incredible team; both of them seem to go at a million miles per hour and yet stay perfectly on the same wavelength. They practically finish each other’s sentences as they go through their data for Pat. They’ve expanded far, far more on the new category Brian had made, and it mirrors exactly what he and Pat are finding in the lab.

Simone pushes her laptop out of the way when they’re done talking through it and leans forward eagerly, chin in her hands, grinning at Pat.

“What about you guys? Feeling good about what you’re finding?”

Pat laughs a little self-consciously, his mind suddenly filled with the flash of light from the other night. “Whatever we’re finding, there sure is a goddamn lot of it to find.”

“Yeah?” says Jenna, interest piqued too, now.

“Yeah. I don’t want to get into it too much since we haven’t even brought a report to Tara yet, but… it’s pretty cool, not gonna lie.”

“I can’t wait to see it!” Simone says, genuinely enthusiastic, her eyes alight with curiosity.

“I can’t wait to show you.” Pat pauses, unsure whether to voice this particular concern, but Simone is one of his very best friends and Jenna is one of hers, so he continues. “Brian’s been acting, like, kinda weird, though? He was weirdly resistant to talking to Tara about this… thing we ran into over the weekend, and, I dunno. It seems like there’s something bothering him, or something, but I don’t know if I’m reading into it too much?”

“I’m sure he’s probably just nervous. I would be in, his shoes,” Jenna says, but her eyebrows are furrowed in concern. “Was he in over the weekend again?”

“Yeah. He called me on Saturday —” He conveniently leaves out the time at which that call took place. “— and we were here for a while working, ‘cause he found some stuff he wanted me to look at. I convinced him to take Sunday off but I’m not sure he would have without my input. I know it’s probably that he wants this to be perfect, but, I dunno. It doesn’t seem super healthy. I just — I hope he knows he can rely on the rest of us for support. I told him as much earlier, but I’m not sure if sunk in. I guess I’m just kind of worried. He’s going to burn himself out at this rate.”

Simone and Jenna exchange a look that Pat can’t parse.

“How’d you get him to take Sunday off?” Simone asks, as innocently as she can manage, which means not innocently at all.

Pat gives her a flat look. She bats her eyelashes at him and he rolls his eyes. “He came over to my place and we played video games all day like a couple of nerds, thank you, Simone.” Never mind the additional details.

“Mm_hm_,” she says.

Pat sighs at her. “I should get back to the lab. God only knows what he’s been up to while I’ve been gone. Hope he hasn’t torn the whole place apart yet.”

“You never know, maybe he’ll have conveniently finished the whole presentation and then you can take a nap!” Jenna says, half-joking.

“God, I wish I could take a fuckin’ nap.”

“Don’t we all,” says Simone. “Go on, Pat, don’t leave the man unattended.”

Pat rolls his eyes. “Okay, bye, Simone,” he says, pointedly, and goes for the door. “Bye, Jenna,” he adds, less pointedly. “Good luck on your stuff, tell me if you find anything cool.”

“Of course!” Jenna says, and he goes.

Pat scans his ID to enter the lab and the door makes its soft click as the lock opens. Pat opens the door and opens his mouth to announce his entrance, but he stops dead at what he finds. He reaches behind himself and catches the door before it can slam shut and eases it closed quietly as he stares.

Brian has his back to the door; Pat can’t see his face, but he can see Brian’s tense, keyed-up posture. He is nearly bouncing on his toes, holding what Pat thinks is his tablet and stylus, or maybe his notebook and pen.

That much is not an uncommon sight. The real shock is what is on the far side of Brian, what Brian’s whole being seems to be fixed on.

The crystal in the spectrometer is the size of a fist, of a heart, nearly twice the size of the one that Brian had been examining on Saturday. It’s an even more vivid yellowy-gold color, and it is glowing, so brightly it nearly hurts Pat’s eyes to be even facing in its direction, coloring everything in a weird sickly green, flickering with hundreds of tiny lightning bolts of pure energy. As Pat watches, it surpasses even the intensity of Saturday’s demonstration, the brilliance of the light making Pat squint against it.

With a jolt of horror he realizes that the emergency protocol that shut everything down then is not activating now. In fact, the panel of lights has one light linking red. It’s been turned off.

Pat wants to speak, to say something, to shout at Brian to turn the spectrometer the _fuck_ off, what are you _doing?_

He can’t make his mouth move. He can’t make his vocal cords work.

He steps backwards and slips out the door as quietly as he possibly can.

Then he fucking bolts.

His feet take him to the single-stall bathroom halfway down the hall. He slams and locks the door behind him, gasping against the panic gripping his lungs, unable to take a full breath. He feels almost dizzy with the sudden burst of adrenaline. He pushes his glasses and goggles up onto the top of his head and drags his palms down his face.

_Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!_

He looks up and makes eye contact with his reflection, blurry without his glasses on but still clearly shaken, dark eyes wide, face pale, hair a wild mess.

He stares at himself like a deer in the fucking headlights for a long moment before an idea strikes him, sharp and hard and obvious. He fishes his phone out of his pocket with shaking hands, nearly fumbling it.

Brian  
  
Just finished meeting w/Simone and Jenna. Omw back, need anything while I’m over here?  
  


The response comes back in just about exactly the amount of time it would take to shut down the machine and shove the sample back into storage. Pat hopes it wasn’t too late. That nothing has happened. That the other safety mechanisms held up.

no thx im good, ty though  
  
everything go ok?  
  
Of course. Tell you more when I get back  
  
kk. nothing too fun going on over here dw, u didn’t miss much lol. started a powerpoint it looks p awesome  
  
Damn really going all out with this one huh?  
  
u know me. cant do anything halfassed  
  
Dr. Brian David Gilbert: Certified Whole-Asser  
  
LMAO  
  


Pat splashes some cold water on his face, hoping it’ll somehow wash away the weird anxiety in his eyes. It doesn’t, but with his glasses and goggles on and his hair falling around his face, he hopes it won’t really matter anyway.

He goes back into the laboratory, and sure enough, everything is as it should be. Brian is at the table, and looks up from his tablet to give Pat a very casual wave and half-smile. Pat would not have suspected a thing had he not borne witness to it.

Anxiety roars in Pat’s chest; blood roars in his ears, like it does when he needs to say something but is too scared. When he is on the verge of saying something big and important.

He doesn’t open his mouth. He returns the little smile, the wave, and sits down next to Brian. The coward’s route.

“Show me what you’ve got,” Pat says, and Brian pulls up the slideshow that he has started. He doesn’t even balk as he walks through his ideas, as Pat chimes in with his own thoughts, as they collaborate on what, exactly, they will tell Tara.

There is no mention of the brilliant lights that Pat saw mere minutes ago.

There is no mention of the horrifically risky breach in protocol, in safety measures, that Brian has just taken.

Everything proceeds as if it were normal.

Pat sort of feels like he can’t breathe as soon as he gets to the lab the next morning. Like some weight has taken up residence on or inside his chest and is constricting his lungs. A weight roughly equivalent to an upstart young scientist and the very real physical machine and unstable specimens and data with which he is toying, flirting with disaster.

Pat grits his teeth and tries to focus on the coffee in his hands, at the notes and slideshow he pulls up on his computer to review before they meet with Tara. The two of them had dropped by her office before she left the previous evening and gave her copies of some of their notes. Her eyes had gone wide.

“Meet me in the morning,” she’d said, “about nine-thirty. Can you be ready to brief everyone on this by tomorrow afternoon?”

“We’ll be ready by midmorning, if not sooner,” Brian had replied smoothly. Tara had looked duly impressed, and an email promptly went out announcing an all-hands meeting at 11 AM. Brian and Pat stayed to finish the presentation, got it done in a couple hours, and went home to get some rest. Or try to.

Pat can’t get the afterimage of the light out of his mind when he closes his eyes. Sleeping is nearly impossible, now; he’d been curled up hugging his knees all night, hardly able to keep his eyes closed without blinking them open seemingly moments later in a jolt of anxiety.

Brian will tell him when he’s ready, surely.

Right?

Pat sips at his coffee and does his damndest to push his worries out of his mind. He runs a hand backwards through his hair, pushing it out of his face. He’d made an actual effort to look decent today, in anticipation of his coworkers’ eyes being on him, and he can’t keep his fidgety hands still.

“Morning, Pat Gill!” says a voice from behind him; the owner of the voice slides into the seat next to him. Brian is wearing a white collared shirt with a black-and-white floral print tie under a heather gray sweater, and he looks fucking fantastic. His eyes are bright, his smile brighter, and his hair looks so goddamn soft it is unfair. He puts Pat’s blue button-down to shame, making him look entirely halfhearted in comparison.

“Hey there. You look fancy.”

“Thanks! Is the tie too much? I was worried it might be, and, oh, you’re not wearing one, oh gosh —”

“It’s fine, Brian, you look great.”

“Oh,” says Brian, who — if Pat didn’t know better — almost looks a little flustered. “Thank you, Pat.”

Pat shrugs it off. “It’s the truth. You ready for Tara?”

“As I’ll ever be,” Brian says. Upon closer inspection, his smile is tight around the edges, nervous. Pat stands and gives him a smile that is as reassuring as he is capable of under the circumstances. He gathers his tablet and his coffee and the two of them set off for Tara’s office.

Her office is at the opposite end of the building, and it is truly remarkable that with practically every step they take, Pat can watch the color drain from Brian’s face. He looks away for a moment, distracted by saying _hey_ to Samit and Susana as they walk past, and when he looks back at Brian, Brian looks as though he’s seen a goddamn ghost. His face is pale and his grip on his tablet is white-knuckled and his eyes won’t settle on anything, flickering across the hallway.

Pat slows, stops, and Brian mirrors him, possibly more subconsciously than anything. Pat, tentative, reaches out and touches Brian’s forearm lightly. He is not surprised when Brian’s whole body flinches violently at the touch.

“Brian,” Pat says softly, “what’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” Brian says, voice hoarse. “I feel kind of sick.”

Pat instinctively takes a half-step back, and takes his hand away from Brian’s arm for good measure. “You’re, like, really pale. Do you need to go sit down? Drink some water or something?”

“Maybe. Fuck.”

“Do you need to go home?”

“No! No. Fuck, I just — I feel dizzy and — I dunno — super nauseous?”

“Sounds kinda like a panic attack to me,” Pat says gently. “I can explain to Tara what’s going on. She’ll totally get it. You take some time to calm down, okay? I can fill her in on our research by myself. Then we can see about the presentation after that, if you’re feeling any better, but no pressure.”

“Okay,” Brian says faintly. “Are you sure? I really — really don’t want to miss the presentation — will Tara really be — are you sure she won’t be mad?”

“One hundred percent sure. The same thing’s happened to me before, too, I had to miss a whole big presentation because I was freaking out and she totally understood. You’re gonna be okay, I promise. You go find someplace quiet to chill for a while. I’ll come check up on you when I’m done talking to Tara. I’ll tell you everything. Then, if you’re okay to do the presentation, we can do that. If not, we’ll figure out a new plan. It’s going to work out just fine, no matter what.”

“Okay.” Brian draws a shaky breath. “Okay, I’m gonna — yeah.”

Brian turns and retreats, and all but sprints down the hallway. Pat watches him go, concerned, but once Brian turns the corner it is out of his hands. He turns back around and talks the rest of the way to Tara’s office alone.

Tara looks up when Pat walks in.

“Hey, Pat. Where’s Brian?”

“He was having a panic attack, he honestly looked like he was a second away from, like, keeling over or puking or something,” Pat says, with a sympathetic wince. “I told him to go chill out somewhere and calm down. He’s been super invested in this, and I think he’s really worried about how it’s going to be received.”

“That makes sense. It’s definitely nerve-wracking, especially to have something that’s turned out to be so big as his first major project. I don’t blame him. Do you think he’ll be alright for the presentation?”

“I’m not totally sure. I hope so? Maybe if he just drinks some water and has some space to calm down things will be better in an hour or so. That’s usually how it goes with me, anyway.”

Tara smiles, sympathetic. “I hope so too. Here, come sit, and we can go over what that’ll look like, with Brian or otherwise.

Pat obligingly takes the chair across from her, and pulls up the slideshow on his tablet. Tara looks quite pleased by it, and Pat files that away to relay to Brian, the artistic mind behind the presentation. Pat probably would’ve just scribbled his notes onto the whiteboard as he talked, had it been up to him.

He gives her a more thorough explanation of their research than they had the previous evening, and tells her about what happened Saturday. He omits what he saw Brian doing yesterday; for what reason, he’s not quite sure.

Tara shakes her head in fond exasperation as Pat admits what time they left on Saturday — well, Sunday morning. “You both need to chill out and not be in the lab in the dead of night. Get a social life,” she adds, teasing. Pat rolls his eyes. “But that’s — damn, Patrick, you really might’ve found something here. I can see in your notes you’ve got a lot about resonance and dimensional rifts, and if I’m being completely honest I wouldn’t rule that out. But, Pat, no one’s seen that in practice before.”

“I know.”

“We wouldn’t even necessarily know what it looked like, if we saw it.”

“I know. It might be a long shot, but it’s what we’ve got at the moment. I’d love to hear everyone else’s thoughts, see if anyone else has any thoughts or research that might lead down other avenues. Certainly this is something that’ll benefit from being looked at by a team larger than two.” He wishes Brian were here to hear him say this; he is so goddamn worried about Brian going off on his own and getting in over his head.

“Yeah, absolutely. I can’t wait for the presentation. You can do it on your own if Brian isn’t able to join you, right?”

“Yeah,” Pat says, pointedly ignoring the rush of nerves that courses through him at the mere thought of speaking in front of all his coworkers. He is _perfectly capable, thank you very much_. “For sure.”

“Okay. Well, let me know about Brian, and I’ll see you at eleven for the meeting.”

“Thanks, Tara. See you later.”

He checks his phone once he’s in the hallway, and sees Brian has already texted him. A lot of times, in fact.

Brian  
  
im hiding in the mens room around the corner jsyk  
  
i am still freaking the fuck out??? which is dumb but so is having an anxiety disorder just like in general and theres nothing i can do about that  
  
sorry for double texting but ur gonna get more texts bc i need something to focus on lol  
  
oh jeez i hope your phone is on do not disturb or something so you dont think theres some emergency. its just me hello sorry  
  
sorry for losing my shit and making you meet w tara alone. im hoping i’ll chill out and be good 2 go for the presentation tho. i’m just gonna like play some games and sit on the floor or something. i’ll be here for the foreseeable future if you need me  
  
I’m coming to rescue you. Need anything?  
  
my hero  
  
no im good but tysm for real  
  


Pat pushes the bathroom door open with his shoulder, his hands occupied with phone and coffee and tablet. The bathroom by the administrative offices is like twelve thousand times nicer than the ones by the labs; it has a full-length mirror and a long counter and a cushioned bench in a little entryway, and a second door into the actual bathroom. Brian is sitting on the bench, his arms wrapped around his knees. He looks up when Pat comes in.

“Hey,” he says, his voice a little rough. His eyes are red and glassy and his face is flushed, like he’s been crying or something.

“Hey, you,” Pat says, and sits gingerly beside him. Brian watches him, and does not flinch away. “How are you doing?”

“Better, I think. At least a little.” He uncurls himself a little, one leg stretched out and the other foot still on the seat, fingers locked loosely around his ankle. He looks at Pat, with an effortful, shaky smile. “How was the meeting?”

“Good! Really good. Tara liked the PowerPoint,” Pat says, and Brian’s smile grows a little more genuine. “She was excited to hear about what we found and agrees that it’s a good idea to have, y’know, more than two minds on this.”

“What’d she think of the hypotheses?”

“Scientifically skeptical, as anyone would be.” Brian winces, just a little, but Pat catches it. He continues hastily. “But she didn’t write it off or anything, it’s not like she thinks anything bad. I think it’ll be interesting to see how the conversation goes, see if anyone’s got correlating data.”

“Yeah,” Brian says, thoughtful. He curls back into himself again, dropping his head to rest it on his knee. “Should be good.”

Pat is quiet for a moment, watching him. “Is there something on your mind?”

“No, not really. Well, I mean, you know, not other than the obvious. Just worried about presenting and what everyone’s going to think.”

“I hear you. I know you’re invested in this. I am too. But, you know, no matter how this goes, no matter what happens — and I _know_ it’s going to go well, I know you and I know this work and we have really, really solid stuff here — no matter what, we’re a team, okay? We’re in this together. You don’t have to do any of this alone. I’m here to back you up.”

“Thanks, Pat,” Brian says softly.

“Of course,” says Pat. “Can I do anything for you?”

“I might just — drink some water or something — then we can maybe glance over our notes before the presentation? Just to make sure I have my brain in order.”

“Okay. That sounds really good. You feel like you’ll be okay to do that?”

Brian looks up at Pat. He still looks rattled, but there is determination on his face, now. “Yeah. I think I’m gonna be fine.”

“Good,” says Pat, and means it.

“I’m gonna, like, splash some water on my face and make myself look like a human being again. I’ll meet you at the computers in a few minutes?”

“Sounds good to me,” Pat says. He knows a dismissal when he hears one, and makes himself scarce.

Brian, true to his word, approaches Pat in the computer lab less than ten minutes after Pat gets there. His hair is back in place, his face no longer flushed red, his clothes are impeccable, and he smells sharply of mint when he plops into the chair beside Pat. Brian smiles at him, and leans over to look at the screen. It’s like nothing even happened.

Pat scrolls to the top of their notes, and the two of them huddle around the screen to check their facts. Pat’s heart is certainly only racing from nerves, not proximity to Brian.

They make their way to the conference room together. No one else is there yet. Pat pulls up the presentation on the computer there and thus proceeds to spend the next several minutes trying to figure out how to turn on the projector, then how to get the computer to connect to the projector, then how to get the presentation to actually show up on the projector. He catches Brian snickering at him and pretends not to notice. Privately, though, he’s glad to see him smile, after watching him panic.

Simone, Jenna, and Allegra are the first to show up, talking amongst themselves but sparing hellos for Pat and Brian. They take the first three sits at the left side of the table. Allegra puts her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands and grins at Pat and Brian, but mostly Pat.

“I’m bracing myself to have my socks knocked off,” Allegra says.

“Did you tape them on?” Pat replies, half-distracted by his technical difficulties, but he looks at her and smiles when she laughs.

“She stapled them, actually, it was pretty gruesome,” Jenna says.

“Gross,” says Pat. “No need to go to such lengths on my account, Allegra.”

“I just care very much about my sock integrity,” Allegra says.

“Sock integrity?” says Tara, as she walks into the room. “What is going on in here?”

“Allegra’s taking preventative measures to ensure her socks don’t get knocked off,” Simone says.

“Oh. Well, that almost makes sense,” Tara says, sitting down across from them, directly in front of Pat. “How are you guys? Almost ready to go?”

“Mmhm,” Pat mumbles, clicking through yet another menu, “once I get this up it’ll be perfect. Right, Brian?”

“Yep!” Brian chirps, and when Pat looks up at him, his smile barely looks forced at all. Pat glances at Tara, who is studying Brian, then looks back at the computer.

Finally, the screen lights up with the first slide of their presentation, and Pat breathes a quiet sigh of gratitude. He exchanges a quick, relieved glance with Brian as more of their coworkers start to make their way into the room. Jeff’s entrance is marked with his laughter as he looks over his shoulder, mid-conversation with Clayton and Chelsea, and they’re soon followed by a larger group.

Tara calls everyone to attention just a couple minutes after eleven, with a perfunctory _alright everyone it’s time to shut up and listen to Patrick and Brian_, which sends a ripple of laughter around the room before everyone falls quiet, and she turns it over to them

As soon as Brian is the center of attention — and he truly is; Pat is behind a standing desk with the controls for the slideshow — he seems to light up from within in a way that Pat has never seen from him before. He stands taller, somehow, posture impeccable, and when he looks out over the gathered audience of their coworkers Pat could swear he’s even actually making real eye contact. His own chest seizes with anxiety at the very thought, no matter how much he knows and likes these people.

Brian launches into speech, no preamble, starting from the top. The first slide shows the diagram that got them to this point; complicated lines and data that would seem unintelligible anywhere else. But Brian is already alight with enthusiasm, and the eyes of everyone in the room are fixed upon him.

He’s an astonishingly engaging speaker. Pat had not actually expected this, what with the panic attack this morning, the nerdy scientist aura, but then again he supposes he shouldn’t be surprised — Brian _had_ told him he did theatre and music, that he’s a performer. It seems so natural; he hardly stutters, only pausing with the odd _um_ to get his phrasing in order. He gestures with his whole body and even somehow manages to make it _fun_, even _funny_, he gets the room to laugh, and Pat too.

He breezes through the introductory section as though it is nothing, and does a little spin on his heel as he transitions into their new findings. It is very charming, not only to Pat, judging by the smiles on their coworkers’ faces.

“So! That brings us to what we’ve been doing in the lab lately. I think I can speak for both Pat and I when I say we’re both pretty dang invested in this, by which I mean, we made a breakthrough late last Saturday night.” He gives a performative wince, which gets a laugh; he has a well-developed reputation now for his constant weekend and late-night work.

Pat clicks to the next slide. They didn’t think to take pictures of Saturday’s phenomenon, so they just have the data, which Pat has compiled into neat and tidy diagrams that are much easier on the eyes than the endless pages of charts and spreadsheets and hastily scrawled notes. Brian explains what they’re looking at, the ways their results are testing the theories that they’ve been working with for decades.

Brian looks out across the room. His face is set in a determined expression.

“You see, few have had the opportunity to examine these questions in practice, especially not with the purity and variety of samples we now have access to. With this new data, we can see that a great quantity of these hypotheses may, in fact, be grounded in reality.” There is a frenzied spark of excitement in Brian’s eyes as he speaks; his gestures grow more emphatic.

“Many have speculated that this could be the key to accessing other dimensions. The energy output would need to be incredibly high to do something like this, but as you can see here —” Brian indicates the graph, “—even with imperfect samples and a finite cap on the currents, the path is already clear. Imagine what could happen if we weren’t restricted by the limitations of the machine and its safety cutoffs.”

Pat glances quickly, worriedly, at Brian, whose voice is rising in intensity and volume.

“The way forward is clear; there is much to be gained from exploring this further. In fact, the consequences could not only change what we know about dimensional physics, could not only change the course of our own hypotheses and research, but could change the world as we know it.”

There is a wild look in his eyes. Pat can’t tear his eyes off of him. He can’t bear, either, to look out and see what expressions must surely be on their coworkers’ faces.

“With this new knowledge, with the tools and data and most of all _drive_ to discover, we have the _universe_ at our fingertips. We have the opportunity to _redefine everything we know_ and we have no choice but to go on and take that chance. The world is at our fingertips. We must be _ready for it!”_ Brian all but roars. When he stops speaking, he is breathing heavily.

The room is absolutely dead fucking silent.

Pat wrenches his eyes from a breathless Brian and finally dares to look out across the room. The first face he sees is Tara’s; he cannot tell even a little bit what is going through her head. Pat feels almost sick with sudden anxiety. Her gaze finds Pat’s, then, after a second, and she studies him questioningly. He gives her a wide-eyed _I have no idea what the absolute shit or fuck just happened_ look in response, complete with anxious grimace and tiny shrug. She gives him the slightest hint of a nod and clears her throat.

Brian’s whole body turns towards her, wide-eyed and seeking… something. Approval, probably? Permission, maybe?

“Right,” Tara says slowly. She looks from Brian to the bewildered group of scientists in the room, amongst whom whispers are beginning to break out. “That was… definitely engaging, Brian. And Pat. Everyone here is dismissed to lunch; we will send out a follow-up email with notes and meeting minutes, schedule discussions with relevant teams, all that jazz. Thanks, everyone. Brian, Pat, stay here a minute?”

Everyone shuffles their way out, much more subdued than on the way in. There are quiet conversations between small groups; worried confused concerned glances are shot back over shoulders. Allegra hesitates, looking at Pat. He gives her the most reassuring smile he can manage and tries to indicate to her that she should just go. She continues to hang back, but he shakes his head and shrugs, trying to communicate to her his genuine confusion. She frowns, eyebrows drawing together in what looks like concern, but finally exits.

Tara is caught up in quietly talking to Chelsea, and Pat turns to Brian, who is still standing in the same spot he was, as though frozen to the ground. His eyes are wide and his arms hang sort of limply at his sides. Pat goes to him.

“Hey, are you, like — are you okay?”

“I, uh, that was a lot. I think I got a little too intense there,” Brian says quietly. He runs a hand through his hair nervously and adjusts his glasses, looking up at Pat.

“Yeah, maybe,” Pat says, as the understatement of the year. “I’ll, uh. Do you need some water or something.”

“I think that’d be good,” Brian says. He seems a little dazed. Pat grabs his water bottle from next to the computer and offers it to Brian, who does not seem bothered by the fact that it is Pat’s water bottle — in fact seems to hardly register it at all — and opens it on autopilot.

Chelsea finally leaves the room and Tara turns and approaches them. Pat’s heart rate kicks up again. Brian appears to be trying to drink some water without spilling it all down his front, which in his current, sort of out-of-it state, does not seem like it is out of the realm of possibility.

Brian caps the water bottle and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and says, “What do you mean?”

Pat tries not to outwardly cringe. He does not think he does a very good job of this, judging by the way Tara’s eyes flick to him for a moment, then back to Brian.

“What do you mean, what do I mean? You swung a hard left halfway through your presentation and started yelling about, like, how what you were doing was going to break the universe or something.” Tara sighs and changes her tone. Gentles. “Brian, are you getting enough sleep? I’m worried about you. It seems like you’re really caught up in this.”

Brian looks like he’s going to say something, but Tara doesn’t let him interrupt her.

“I think you should take a few days off. You too, Pat. I’m not taking this project from you; god knows you’re both plenty passionate about it.”

Brian breathes out a soft _thank you_ as Tara continues.

“I’d like both of you to take the rest of the week off. And I mean _entirely_. You’ve been working crazy hours and it’s obviously impacting you. Do what you need to. Please, just take a break from this.”

Pat nods, chewing his lip anxiously. “Okay,” he says. “That sounds like a good idea. Thank you, Tara.”

“Yeah,” says Brian, a little less committal. “You’re probably right, we could both use the rest.” Brian shoots a sideways look at Pat that has so many potential meanings that he can’t even possibly interpret it by any stretch of the imagination.

“Okay, good. Glad we’re on the same page. You can both head home now, if you like. I assure you, you’re not in trouble or anything. I can tell you just need some space from work. I know how this sort of thing can get to a person sometimes. Take care of yourselves, okay? Let me know if you need anything.”

Pat and Brian both mumble their thanks to her, accepting this dismissal. Pat feels like his blood has been replaced with anxiousness in liquid form as he takes a step towards the door, following after Brian.

“Pat, hang on a minute,” Tara says, and Pat freezes in his tracks. Brian pauses too, but Tara waves him on and he goes obligingly enough. She waits for the door to click shut after him before she speaks again. “Did you know anything about what he was going to say?”

“No. We didn’t really have a script. We ran through it a couple times, but — he never said anything like that. Stuck to the facts like he did at the beginning. I have absolutely no idea what his deal is.”

“Huh,” says Tara, processing this. “Fair enough. What’d your hypothesis be? Stress getting to him or something?”

“I can’t imagine this is the most stress he’s been under, he went to Johns Hopkins for his PhD, for god’s sake, but — well, y’know, maybe. This is a pretty big deal. And he’s been working crazy hours, like, even more than just last weekend.”

“Do you two talk outside of work?”

“Yeah, a bit.”

“Can you try and keep an eye on him? I know that’s, like, totally out of your jurisdiction, and so of course there’s no pressure. I just think he might respond better to someone who’s not his boss, if that makes sense.”

“Yeah, for sure. I don’t mind at all. I’ll check in on him and make sure he’s not doing secret physics.”

Tara laughs. “Thanks, Pat. I’ll see you Monday. For real, if you need anything or if you’re worried about Brian, or anything at all, please let me know. I’ve got your back.”

“Thank you, Tara,” Pat says, and means it sincerely. She smiles at him.

“Go eat lunch and take a nap, alright? You look a little dead on your feet, too.”

“I’m on it, boss.”

Brian is packing up his things at a snail’s pace next to Pat’s computer, either dawdling for Pat or incredibly distracted. He startles when he notices Pat has entered his space, but shakes it off well enough.

“What did Tara want?” Brian asks.

“Just checking in with me. She’s real concerned. I am too, honestly. What was all that about, Brian?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Brian says. Pat fixes him with a flat look. “What!”

Pat sighs. There’s no way he’s getting more out of Brian about what just happened if he’s going to be like this. “It just seems like you’re in a little over your head, I guess. You know you don’t have to do all this extra work, right? You can keep it to office hours.”

Brian’s lips press together in a flat line. “I guess,” he says, noncommittal, unconvinced. “Well, got the week off, so I’ll be sure to figure out how to tread water a little better, hah.”

“I’m not — Brian, I’m not trying to put you down. You know I think you’re brilliant. I _know_ you are. It’s okay to need to take a step away, though. Normal, even. And, hey, we’ve got like a week to do whatever we want, yeah? You could murder me at fighting games again or something, if — y’know, if you wanted to hang out, I totally get it if you don’t —”

“Pat, please, of course I want to hang out,” Brian says, claws sheathed again. “I hardly have any friends here and both my roommates work full time. Please come over and make my apartment less lonely.” He gives a wry twist of a smile.

“Will do,” Pat says, relieved. “Just let me know when, okay? I’m gonna head home, I super want to take a nap.”

“Okay. I’m gonna head out in a few minutes, I think. Here’s your water bottle, by the way,” Brian says, offering it back to Pat. He accepts it and shoves it in his bag with the rest of his things.

“See you, Pat.”

“See you,” Pat echoes.

He checks his phone once he’s out the door, and sighs at the text he knew he'd have.

Allegra  
  
Ok WTF was all that about??  
  
Hell if I know. Tara gave us both the rest of the week off. I think she thinks Brian’s overworked himself and just like fuckin snapped  
  
Jfc  
  
You lucky binch though id KILL for a week to just zzzzzz  
  
Wouldn’t pull that shit in a presentation tho  
  
Obv i have my priorities straight  
  
Lmao  
  
What do you think happened tho? I mean u see him all the time you must have some idea  
  
I really don’t know. He’s been acting sort of weird lately but I didn’t think it was anything to be concerned about. Now I’m kind of genuinely worried? Like…. that was a super weird stunt to pull esp w/o letting me know at all ahead of time  
  
Yeah forreal  
  
You gonna check on him while ur off?  
  
Tara asked me to. I prob would’ve anyway tho  
  
Haha i thought you would. Just bonk him upside the head if he starts doing any physics and mayb he’ll be normal by next week LOL  
  
JK i don’t think hes capable of being normal hes a nerd and a half  
  
No kidding  
  
Ok I’m getting lunch and then I’m gonna take a WHOLE FUCKIN NAP and no one can stop me  
  
U LUCKY DOG. TAKE A NAP 4 ME ALSO  
  
TTYL BRO ♥  
  


From: Tara Long

Subject: Gill & Gilbert Presentation - Notes & Minutes, Follow-Up

To: Polygon Staff

Attached:  AllHandsMinutes.pdf  GILLGILBERT.pptx

Hey Team,  
Attached is the slideshow from Pat and Brian’s presentation as well as Chelsea’s notes.

Lab work is paused for the week on the Xenium project and will resume next Monday. I will be meeting with each team individually this week to discuss and go over latest data. Reminder to get permission from me directly if you want to use the lab.

Allegra & Chelsea: 11am Tues w/report drafts  
Clayton, Jenna, & Simone: 2pm Tues - need to see lab data please!  
Jeff, Samit, & Susana: 11am Wed - updated spreadsheets?  
Karen & Petrana: 2pm Wed - general check-in  
Brian & Pat: 11am Mon

Thanks everyone! I’ll be sending relevant info directly to teams soon.

Tara Long, PhD  
Executive Director, Polygon  
(111) 222-3344 / tlong@polygon.sci  
890 Address St., NYC / http://polygon.sci

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> writing/editing this chapter aka [dies of secondhand embarrassment]
> 
> also i'm gonna go back and edit this in to the beginning but the tutorials i've used for texts and emails are [here](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/A_Guide_to_Coding_and_Fanworks/works/7953412) and [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6434845/chapters/14729722)


	4. iv.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content notes:  
-rating's been bumped up but there's no sex in this chapter  
-there is however some dubious non-sexual consent in this chapter

Pat sleeps in the next day, luxuriously, not a single alarm set. He feels groggy when he wakes up, well past noon, but _god_ did he need it. He rolls onto his back and checks his phone.

Allegra  
  
**Today** 9:31 AM  
Lol I think everyone thinks y’all got in trouble or sth Tara should have done something to check this RAMPANT GOSSIP, did you see she didn’t even say what ur meeting about on monday LMAO. I tried to set ppl straight but tbh i dont entirely know ur not in trouble :P  
Im kidding i told anyone being nosy that u both worked urselves 2 death and got told to take time off and they were like … o. sad. no drama then. :( like HAHA U WILL NOT FIND GOSSIP HERE BINCHES at least not about MY BRO  
Anyway i hope you are getting LOTS OF SLEEP and do SO MUCH ABSOLUTELY NOTHING on my behalf  
**Today** 12:40 PM  
Thank you for defending my honor. We aren't in trouble lol I don't think anyway  
  


Brian  
  
**Today** 10:35 AM  
want to come over today? i promise i will not ditch you this time and we can make good on that mariokart  
**Today** 12:43 PM  
Yeah for sure I just gotta drag my butt out of bed and make myself look like a human being lmao. You good for in like an hour or 2?  
  
ofc! u might want my address i guess lol  


Brian sends his address, Allegra doesn’t text back because she’s a responsible person who does her job, and Pat hauls himself out of bed to shower and eat something. He takes his time, basking in the fact that he doesn’t have to rush anywhere. Brian will still be there even if Pat takes ages.

He gets to Brian’s at nearly three, shooting him a text on the way. He kicked his own dang self out the door once he realized he was fussing over what his hair looked like. It’s rainy today, anyway, and sure enough his fussing would have been ruined either way, because his hair is dripping cold water down the back of his neck as he taps on Brian’s door.

The door flings itself open, probably harder than necessary, and Brian sways with the force of it and catches himself on the doorknob.

“Hey, Pat Gill,” he says, with a smile that’s too wide. Pat’s heart drops down to his feet as he says _hey_ back and walks inside and takes a better look at him. Brian lets the door fall shut behind Pat and looks like he is concentrating very, very hard on keeping himself steady. Pat casts his eyes around the living room. There is a nest of blankets on the couch with a Brian-shaped space in the middle; a bottle, empty, lying on its side on the coffee table, and although the contents are unknown Pat can take an educated guess; a half-empty glass of water next to it. The TV is on the Switch home screen, _MarioKart_ as the first icon.

Pat’s gaze slides back to Brian, suspicious to cover his concern. “Don’t think you’re supposed to drink and ‘kart,” he says lightly.

“You’re not _supposed_ to drive good in _MarioKart_,” Brian protests, herding Pat towards the couch.

“You have some sort of wild party I missed?” It’s not even three in the fucking afternoon.

“Just me ‘n Zuko,” Brian says, waving his hand vaguely in the direction of the black-and-white cat glaring suspiciously at Pat from the far corner of the room.

“Good to know you’re being responsible,” Pat mutters.

Brian just _hmm_s in response. He hands Pat a controller, and then goes, “Wait! Wait wait wait, I have something to show you!”

Pat raises his eyebrows as Brian leans forward and grabs his laptop off the coffee table. He flips it open and enters his password correctly after only a false start or two. Brian’s eyebrows furrow in focus as he looks for whatever he wants to show Pat. His face is slightly flushed; his hair is rumpled; he’s wearing his glasses instead of contacts; his lips are parted slightly and he mouths something to himself as he types. He’s fucking _pretty_, is the thing, even fucked up like this.

Pat doesn’t really want to think about why this is how Brian chose to spend his first actual day off in god only knows how long.

“Okay! Okay, found it, come here — um, here, let’s — I’ll take this to the table, yeah, then you don’t have to have this just sitting in your lap.” Pat misses whatever leap in logic Brian has taken to presuppose that Pat would mind holding a laptop in his lap, a location which is literally in the name of the device.

Brian bounces to his feet, an action that makes Pat concerned for the safety of the computer, but no disasters happen. Pat has only just sat down, but he puts the controller down and follows Brian to the kitchen table. He sits down in the chair that Brian gestures emphatically towards, and Brian pushes the laptop in front of Pat and leans heavily on the back of Pat’s chair.

“What am I looking at?” Pat says, squinting at the file that Brian has pulled up. It looks very suspiciously like some physics.

Brian drops his chin to Pat’s shoulder, right in the indent behind his clavicle. Pat goes very, very, very still, barely breathing, as though any movement at all will startle Brian into moving away. He does not want him to move away. He can feel Brian’s breath on the side of his neck, hot and humid, moving his hair. He smells like wine. He is so fucking close to him.

“I had some thoughts. I wrote them down, I wanted you to see,” Brian says.

So it is very definitely some physics. Pat skims the document; it starts out mildly coherent and devolves into utter chaos. Brian’s mouth is just inches from Pat’s neck. Pat can feel him staring holes into the side of his head. Pat stares harder at the laptop, trying to divine some sort of meaning from it, trying not to think about how he can feel the heat from Brian’s body.

_Dimensional rift = resonaance + current + crystal +_

“You didn’t finish your equation, here,” Pat murmurs, tapping the screen. He can almost feel the sound when Brian gives a disinterested _hm_. He doesn’t think Brian even so much as looks at where he’s pointing. Pat laughs softly and continues scrolling.

_Next time shoudl try pure 100^% sample if Tara lets us. Does anywherr have the cooler spectriometer i want to see what happens with beter one_

“I think I’ve noticed a couple typographical errors in your document.”

“Name _one_,” Brian says, haughtily, but so quietly, mindful that he’s speaking basically directly into Pat’s ear. He exhales; a shiver runs down Pat’s spine.

_UPdate googled it the only otehr one is in New Mexico and it woudl be a pain int he ass to get over there but if we can voncinve everyone maybe thell let me and pat go?? Its workthit iI really think. It would be so good and important i want everyone to se and to know we did this. I know its’ right i knwo ir. I want to see the rift I know it wold. Happpen if the safeteys were off im not supoesd to though but i know its there. I’ts just needs the power. Everontes gonna see how godo and important ti is I have all the math and everything I know what will hapen we jsut gota get the machien that can do it_

Pat scrolls to the next page, which is equally scored with red underlines, and tries not to wince. He’s about to ask what, exactly, Brian wants him to get out of this when Brian draws a breath as if to speak. Pat stills, but Brian says nothing.

In either a moment of horrible impulse, or equally as awfully a result of poorly thought-out premeditation, Pat feels Brian shift and tilt his head towards Pat. Between one heartbeat and the next, Brian’s mouth is on the side of Pat’s neck, just beneath the curve of his jaw, his lips chapped but gentle, parted, and oh god oh fuck oh sweet baby Jesus there is the barest touch of teeth to skin and a hint of hot wet tongue and it is like Pat’s entire nervous system has been electrocuted and he jumps away so hard he knocks the damn chair over and nearly goes sprawling but for catching himself on the table.

He doesn’t know what his face must look like but he guesses he must look horrified and he guesses he is. It’s like his blood has somehow turned to ice and lava at the same time; this strange current of one-part-arousal-nine-parts-shock has taken over every muscle and nerve in his body and he can do nothing except fucking stare at Brian, who is standing there with wide eyes and looks half afraid and half deeply, deeply ashamed.

Pat drags himself upright properly and disentangles his leg from the chair and stands it back up with a hoarse “sorry.” And then once he has broken the silence he apparently can’t stop. “I — Brian — fuck, don’t look at me like that, Brian, I — I just — not while you’re — we can’t do this. Not like this.” It aches somewhere so deep inside him to turn him down like this, but he _can’t_, not under these circumstances, he _won’t_.

“I’m so sorry,” Brian says in the smallest voice Pat has ever heard from him. “I’m so sorry.” He looks on the verge of tears. He looks horrified at himself. He looks so very fucking sorry. Pat wants to reach out for him and — do something, hug him, hold him, just pat his fucking arm in consolation — but he can’t make himself move. “I thought — you might — and I — and I just — and I was so wrong, that was so wrong — I’m so sorry, Pat, I’m so fucking sorry.”

Pat breathes out a slow exhale, trying to unscramble himself. The effort is entirely unsuccessful, but he speaks relatively steadily. “I’m not mad at you. But you’re in no state to talk about this right now. Which is the exact reason we can’t do this. You go — fuck, I dunno — go drink some water and eat something and sleep it off and we’ll talk tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay. I’m so sorry, Pat, I really really am.”

Pat’s chest aches so badly he can hardly breathe. He thought he knew this man he’s spent so much time around for months. He doesn’t think he does, now; whether it was hidden or brand-new, the man standing in front of him seems so different than the one with whom he stood in the subway after a night out, not so very long ago. No more is sweet pensive tipsy Brian; this Brian has dark hollow scared guilty horrified eyes and is completely, entirely incomprehensible to Pat.

He couldn’t divine Brian’s motives if he tried. How is this even the same man? How could he kiss him, drunk, without asking, when Pat has daydreamed for what feels like _eons_ about so much as a gentle brush of their hands? How can he just take what he wants when Pat bites back his desire again and again and again and even now, even when Brian offers himself to him like this, even now Pat has to tamp it down and tell him _no_ and god, god, god, how can either of them go forward after this? How can they ever meet each other’s eyes again?

“Talk to you tomorrow,” is what he says, around the ache, instead of _how could you_ or _what did this mean_ or _I think I’m falling for you_ or _this is the worst idea but I don’t care I liked it I want it_ or _if you were sober I’d shove you against the wall right now and kiss you stupid_ or _why why why why why did you do this Brian do you like me too for real or are you just drunk and lonely_ or _I’m so scared and I like you so bad but I don’t want to ruin everything but I think we might have just ruined everything_, and all but bolts out the door.

The train ride is about five minutes, and he _could_ walk home but he feels his breath hitch in a way that is dangerously approaching a sob and if he cries in public he may actually keel over dead and so he stares empty-eyed out the train window and at the sidewalk and at the stairs up to his apartment and by the time he gets into his room and shuts the door behind himself a sob finally wrenches its way out of him and all he can do is collapse to the floor with his back against the door like some dramatic fucking teenager and put his face in his hands and grit his teeth as the tears come.

It wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t _want_ it so badly, if he didn’t respect Brian, oh that brilliant beautiful man, with every fiber of his being and yet want him so desperately but not like _this_, not like this _ever_, he’s thought about all the ways he could romance this man and now it’s like the carpet has been yanked out from beneath his feet and he’s fallen flat on his ass and he’s crying about it because it _fucking hurts, goddammit_, and it hurts all the more because he wasn’t fucking _expecting_ it.

The worst part, he thinks, the very worst part might be how even through all of this, his desire snarls and coils in him, leaving him with his back against the door and his pulse pounding in his most sensitive places (he can feel it in his neck he can feel where Brian’s _mouth_ was like it’s fucking branded him) and yet even though he can feel his heartbeat he feels like his heart itself has been scooped right out of him and thrown unceremoniously to Brian’s kitchen floor in a gruesome splatter and he just wants to lay on this floor that he needs so badly to vacuum and cry and cry and cry.

So he does the only thing he knows how to do.

He calls Allegra.

She picks up before it even finishes the first ring.

“Pat? What’s going on?”

He realizes he has thought of no way to explain this and he tries to take a breath to speak except it comes out as a strangled sort of sob.

“Oh _shit_. Hang on one sec, okay? I’m at work but I should be leaving anyway, hang on, okay? I’m right here.” The sound on the other end of the line goes muffled, like she’s put her hand over the speaker. _“Chels! I’m leaving for the day! … Yes, probably, that is the only reason I’d ever leave before seven, you got me … Oh my god, whatever. Okay bye!”_

There is the sound of things shuffling around as, presumably, Allegra juggles her phone as she gets her things together.

“You still there?” she says, muffled no more.

“Mhm.”

“God, Patrick, I was already freaked out when I saw you _called_ A.K.A. a thing you probably wouldn’t do even if you were _dying_ and you’re cryi — wait, holy shit, Pat, are you, like, safe? Are you okay? Did something really bad happen?”

“Yeah. No. I.” He takes a shuddery breath. “No, I’m safe. I’m at home. Just. Fuck.” He drags his hand through his hair and sighs. “I — god, I don’t even know how to say this without it sounding like a domino effect of horrible mistakes.”

“Patrick, you are not making me _any_ less worried. Spit it out.”

“Fuck. Okay. I went over to Brian’s and he was super drunk and he made me look at some weird notes about our project that he definitely wrote while he was also super drunk and then he like kissed my neck and I freaked out because what the fuck and then he looked so fucking horrified at himself and I — and I told him to sleep it off and we’ll talk about it tomorrow but Allegra. _Allegra_. I don’t — I don’t know how to handle this.” His voice breaks and he fights with himself to try not to cry into the phone speaker, but it is a losing battle. He takes his glasses off to wipe futilely at his eyes.

“Holy shit,” is Allegra’s very insightful and considered response.

“Yeah,” Pat says, his voice strangled.

“Okay. Wow. Okay. Jeez. I think — I think you definitely did the right thing there.” She takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. “Okay, this is a really, _really_ bad question, but I need to know what direction we’re approaching this from: did you — do you, like — if that had happened when he wasn’t drunk and if he’d asked you first and whatever, like — ugh, basically what I’m saying is, do you like him?”

Pat covers his face with his free hand. “So fucking much, Allegra, I — I don’t know what I’m going to _do_, how am I going to talk to him about this?”

“Well, first, you’ll stop having a panic attack between now and then. I’m coming over, by the way, that’s non-negotiable and I’m on my way as we speak.”

“I don’t think I’m going to stop having a panic attack between now and then, actually.”

“Well, you will, because you don’t have the stamina to have a panic attack for twenty-four hours.”

“Since when are you the judge of my stamina?”

“Hah! Since you are a noodle of a scientist who always wants to take a nap, by which I mean, since always. But, okay, really, Pat, like, you arranged to talk to him tomorrow, you can just tell him all the things you’re feeling. It’s already gonna be crappy and awkward no matter what.”

“That’s _hard_ though.”

“Harder than what? Honestly, I bet you anything he comes in tripping over himself apologizing and feeling like shit because — I mean, I don’t know the guy as well as you, but I didn’t think he was the type to be a total weirdo about wanting to be with someone, and, like, that’s definitely a weirdo move he just pulled which… obviously isn’t great, but if he’s, like, a decent person, he’ll genuinely apologize and never ever do anything like that again.”

“I hope so.”

“I’m about to be underground for the train. I’ll be there in like twenty minutes; I’ll grab some pizza from that place around the corner, okay? And then we can figure the rest of this out. Can you hang on ‘till then?”

“Yeah. I’ll be here. Let yourself in, I don’t think I locked the door.”

“We live in the city!”

“And I’m having a panic attack, leave me alone.”

“Pff. Okay, bye, I’ll see you soon.”

“Bye.”

The line goes dead and Pat drops his phone on the floor. He sighs and picks it back up after a moment and stands, wincing as his bad knee clicks. More on autopilot than anything, he changes into his most comfortable pants and softest hoodie and sits down on his bed, curled in on himself with his arms wrapped around his legs.

This is how Allegra finds him, some twenty minutes later: the very picture of misery, too wiped out to even cry anymore. Her expression drops from caution into concern as she sets the pizza box down on his desk. She crawls onto his bed next to him and wraps her arms around him.

“Aw, Pat,” she says softly, as he sniffles and folds himself into the hug. “Aw, c’mon, it’s gonna be okay, really.” He shoves his face against her shoulder and she runs her fingers through his hair. It’s nice. He doesn’t get this a lot.

“I just don’t know what to do,” he says into her sweater. She pets his hair some more.

“Here is what I, a reasonable human being, think would be a good idea. You can take or leave this advice as you see fit, since I know you are in no way, shape, or form reasonable.”

“Hey!”

“Just sayin’. Okay, so, like, obviously you guys are working on this big-ass deal of a project together, right? And this is already bad enough of a thing to come up during that. So it probably wouldn’t be super smart to try and do a relationship under these circumstances, you know what I’m saying? Especially since you’ve even said yourself that he’s been acting super weird, like whatever happened yesterday. Like, he’s super obviously not in any shape to be in a relationship right now.”

Pat sighs; this is far more logical than any of the thoughts that he’s managed to put together since he left Brian’s apartment, brain screaming.

“I think the responsible adult thing to do here would be for both of you to genuinely tell each other how you feel, about each other, about what happened earlier, about just — whatever. Talk it _out_, you know? It’s not gonna do you any good to bottle it up.”

“Why do you have to be so smart and correct all the time?”

“Can I get you on tape saying that?”

“No. Shut up.”

Allegra laughs. “I mean, I think it’s the conclusion someone with any common sense would come to. Not that us nerds are known to have a lot of it. Really, though, there’s just no point in hiding shit, especially not after that. Like, yikes. I think you’d have come to the same conclusion if you’d had time to calm down and think about it. But. If you want my real and actual advice about what to do, I really, really don’t think you should try and date him or anything. At least not right now. You should wait and see how well he respects your boundaries after this, and also if he’s going to keep being weird about work stuff, and all that. You deserve someone who’s going to be _nice_ to you, and you gotta see if he’ll do that before you do anything.”

“Alright, okay, get your goddamn camera ready, I will admit for the second time in one day that you are always right.”

“I know! I have all the best relationship advice. I don’t know why I’m still single, it’s so tragic.”

“No guys are good enough for you, I think, is the thing.”

“No guys are good enough for you, either. This is why we are both miserable and depressed all of the time. No one should have to like men.”

“Ugh, you’re telling me,” Pat sighs. He straightens up — his back hurts from hunching over to hide against her shoulder — and sighs. “Do you want to watch garbage movies and eat this pizza that some kind angel has brought to my house and also all of the ice cream that is left in my freezer?”

“Pat. Of freaking course. You know that is my favorite way to spend my time.”

Allegra falls asleep against his shoulder halfway through the second movie, once the pizza and ice cream are gone. In the entire time Pat’s known her, he’s never seen her stay awake through more than one movie at a time, and often not even that. He gently shakes her awake as the credits roll, and she makes a grouchy sound.

“Ugh, I gotta get _home_. Some of us have to work tomorrow, ew,” she grumbles.

“You can stay over, if you’d rather.”

“Nah, I don’t have any of my things. I appreciate it, though. Are you doing any better?”

“Yeah. Thanks for talking some sense to me.”

“Of course. I think you’d have come to probably all of the conclusions I did because you’re, like, a smart and kind human being. It’s hard to think straight when you’re upset, I get it.” Pat gives a short _hah_ of laughter at the unspoken gay joke he could make at his own expense; Allegra smiles, likely intuiting this. “Let me know how it goes tomorrow, okay? If shit goes bad, I got your back. You aren’t alone in this.”

“Thank you,” Pat says softly. She leans over and hugs him tight.

“I’m gonna peace out. Text or call if you need anything. Or bug Simone instead.”

“Oh, god, please don’t make me explain all this to Simone.”

“Ha! I’m only kidding. And I won’t tell anyone, obviously, ‘cause that’d just be shitty to do without your permission. For real, though, text me after you talk to him. You’re legally required to tell me how it goes.”

“Are you my lawyer now?”

“Yep! I’ll sue him if he’s a dick. Okay, I really gotta go so I can get some sleep.”

“Okay. I’ll let you know, I promise. Thank you again, really, so much.”

“Any time, Pat. I know you’d do the same for me. What else are friends for, if not to bring you pizza and eat all your ice cream when you’re crying?”

“Hell if I know,” Pat says. He’s smiling, finally, and Allegra smiles back as she lets herself out.

Brian  
  
**Today** 10:42 AM  
hey, pat. i am so, so sorry about what i did yesterday. i crossed a line so badly, both one that i should not have crossed and in a way that made it even worse. i totally understand (not that you need my permission/understanding) if you want to talk to hr and/or ask for a new partner for this project and honestly you probably should. i don’t know how you want to move forward from this but if there’s anything you need from me please tell me if you can. i’m so sorry.  


Pat rubs his eyes and reads the text for the dozenth time. God. He _knows_ how much this project means to Brian and he thinks _honestly Pat probably should_ kick him off it? His heart twists at the thought of what Brian must be putting his own self through right now.

I think we should talk before anything else happens. If it’s alright with you, I’d rather call or meet up because it’s hard to tell tone from texts and the last thing either of us needs right now is to misconstrue something the other has said. If you’d like to come over, you can do so in about an hour. Let me know  
  
are you sure??  
  


Pat sighs. He’s not, really, but he doesn’t want to talk about this where anyone else in the entire world could overhear.

Yeah  
  
If you’re okay with that I mean  
  
ok. i’ll be there around 12:30.  
  
Ok see you then  
  


Pat is restless, jittery-anxious, by the time there is a knock on his door.

Pat opens it to a Brian that could not more clearly be terrified half out of his mind. Pat steps aside to let him in, dropping the door, and Brian watches him like a cornered animal as he removes his jacket. He winces at the sound of the door slamming itself shut.

“How are you doing?” asks Pat, quietly.

“Definitely been better,” Brian says, grimacing. The shadows beneath his eyes are etched deep; he looks pale and exhausted. His hair is shower-damp and clinging to his temples. He looks so very fucking tired and so very fucking miserable. “Not gonna lie, spent most of my morning sick as hell.”

Under any other circumstances, Pat would have teased him, said _serves you right for getting that fucked up, Dr. Gilbert_, tried to make him laugh through it, but instead all he can do is manage a sympathetic face. “That’s no fun,” he says, because he has to say something here, that’s how conversations work.

“Hah. Yeah.” There is no humor in it. He meets Pat’s eyes for the barest of moments before his gaze focuses somewhere past his shoulder, avoidant.

“C’mon, let’s go sit,” Pat says. Brian trails behind him to the living room. Pat sits down on the couch; after a hesitant moment, Brian crosses the room and sits in the armchair across from Pat, criss-cross-applesauce folding himself into the seat and watching Pat with big anxious eyes.

“I’m not gonna yell at you,” Pat says, hating the way Brian keeps looking at him. “I’m upset, yeah, I’m not gonna say I’m not. But I’m mostly upset you didn’t ask first. That you did it when neither of us in good conscience could have said yes.” Pat looks down at his hands, steeling himself, then looks back up at Brian. “I would have said yes,” he says, very softly.

Brian looks as stunned as if someone had just slapped him across the face. “What?”

This is not reassuring. Is it worse, he wonders, if he had thought Pat was gay, or if he hadn’t?

Pat sighs. He runs his hands through his hair. Fuck it. He might as well lay it all out. “Brian, I’ve been into you for _months_. I’ve put it aside because I want to be professional. I don’t know how you feel about me. I think you’re fucking brilliant and wonderful and I love being around you, but I’m really worried about you. Something’s clearly been going on with you lately, and I don’t know what it is, but now it’s affecting your work _and_ your relationships. I — I would help, if you’d let me, but from my perspective it just looks like you’re — I don’t know — I don’t know, Brian, I really just don’t know. Throw me a bone here, please. I just want to know why this happened.”

Brian says _fuck_ very softly. He drags his hands through his hair, down his face. His hair is getting long. He looks up at Pat. He looks so very fucking sad and scared.

The silence stretches long between them before Brian finally speaks.

“Things have been a lot,” he says, very quietly. “This project has been really, really important to me. It’s, like, the culmination of everything I’ve ever worked for. So, of course, I’ve been invested in it. Probably too invested. I can’t stop thinking about it; I can’t think about anything else. But now I’m not supposed to think about it and I’m going out of my fucking mind. I don’t know why. I should by all rights be able to chill, but yesterday I was absolutely losing my shit. I was alone and being stupid and I was like, well, maybe getting drunk will make my brain stop, but it _didn’t_. I don’t remember anything that I wrote yesterday. I’m sure it was complete nonsense. Sorry for making you read that.”

Brian sighs. He’s compulsively picking at his cuticles, a habit that usually makes Pat gently bat at his hand or arm to get him to stop before he starts bleeding, but he’s not close enough, couldn’t touch him even if he was.

“But I’m most sorry for — for — inflicting myself on you. That wasn’t okay. I know that wasn’t okay. I knew then and I know now and I know forever. I don’t know why I did that, except I _wanted_ to so I _did_ and that’s not something anyone should ever ever do. I could blame any number of things if I wanted to, I could say it was the alcohol or the manic episode or the impulse control issues or what-fucking-ever, but — it wasn’t that. In the end it was just me. It’s just me. I don’t want to know that I’m the kind of person who will do that, given the opportunity, but now I know that I am and that’s something I have to live with now. Pat, I — I honestly don’t know why you’re being so nice about it. I shouldn’t have kissed you. I shouldn’t have even let you come over while I was that fucked up.”

Brian rubs at his face. Pat hadn’t even realized, until he moved, that Brian had started to cry. His voice stayed so steady. He looks devastated. Worse than. Defeated. Like… well, like he’s come face-to-face with the worst parts of himself and found that they were exactly what he feared.

“Brian —”

“No, I’m not done. You _should_ report me, Pat, you should take me off this project and get someone better to work with you.”

“I don’t want to,” Pat says. Brian blinks at him. “I’m not gonna deny it, you — uh — _definitely_ made some pretty bad choices. But you also seem pretty genuinely sorry about it. Am I wrong?”

“No — no, I really, really am sorry, nothing like this is _ever_ going to happen again, I promise, I mean it, Pat —”

“So I accept your apology. I can move on, if you can. Do you think that’s possible?”

Brian, to his credit, genuinely considers this. “If — if you can, I — yes. Yes, absolutely. I — you — I can’t believe you’d give me another chance.”

“You weren’t thinking straight. I get it. Doesn’t, like, excuse it, but explains it. God knows I’ve tried to kiss guys that I really shouldn’t have tried to kiss while I was drunk, too.”

Something flickers across Brian’s face. Maybe he really _didn’t_ know Pat was gay. He doesn’t talk about it, really, unless it’s directly relevant. Not out of shame; it’s more that he’s a private person, doesn’t like to get into his personal life unnecessarily, really only speaks candidly about relationship stuff with Simone or Allegra.

“I — this is selfish, and you don’t have to answer. But. Did it — was it going to — did that mean anything?” Pat says, and instantly regrets it.

Brian looks wretched. He looks like he’s about to cry more. God, Pat hopes he doesn’t cry more. He looks exactly like how Pat feels.

“I don’t know,” Brian says, so softly. “I wanted it to. But it — I — you — we shouldn’t.”

“No,” Pat agrees, just as softly. “We shouldn’t.” It hurts just as much as he thought it would, to say this. “You’ve got too much going on right now. We’ve got too much going on at work. It’s a bad idea no matter what way you put it. I like you, Brian, I do. But I like you and respect you as a human being first, and I don’t want to do anything if we can’t do it right. And this —” He waves a hand vaguely. “— this is no way to start a relationship, I don’t think. Not under this much stress, not in the wake of poor choices, not in the middle of maybe the biggest project I ever thought I’d be in.”

“You’re right,” Brian says, pained. At least Pat isn’t alone in this terrible fucking ache. “For what it’s worth — I like you too, Pat. I didn’t — I didn’t think you’d feel the same. I’m sorry for dragging it out of you this way. You deserve better than that. I — I hope that I can do better. I hope I can make this better. I’ll be better, Pat, I promise. I don’t ever want to do something like this again. Not ever.”

“I know,” says Pat. “I trust you.”

Brian makes a choked sound that might be a sob; he covers his face with his hands. It takes every ounce of determination, every atom in Pat’s body, to force himself not to go to him and put his arms around him and hold him and tell him _it’s okay, it’s okay, I forgive you, I want you I want this I want to make things better, let me hold you, let me make you feel better, let me show you how much._

But instead he gets up and he brings Brian a box of tissues and his chest aches. He wonders if, now, if he’s ever going to look at Brian and not hurt somewhere deep inside, somewhere that _wants_ and _needs_ and _just isn’t going to get, fuck you_.

Very little is said, after that. Brian thanks Pat for the tissues. Thanks him for hearing him out. Thanks him for understanding. Apologizes again. He looks like he’s in physical pain, and maybe he is, maybe not even only from the absolutely wicked hangover he is clearly still suffering through.

Pat says of course, of course, of course, it’s okay, I’ll see you soon.

His apartment is too fucking quiet, after he leaves.

Pat spends the rest of his week mostly alone. He sleeps a lot. Tries not to mope and sulk and sink into the too-easy depression funk. Doesn’t do a great job. At the very least, he encounters his roommate occasionally. Texts his friends. Plays games online. Does playing an MMO count as socializing? He’s not sure.

Brian  
  
**Thursday** 3:22 PM  
You’re not doing science, are you?  
  
i would never do a science not even once  
no for real i promise im not  
laura took the rest of the week off she said it’s not to supervise me but i think she’s lying. id be offended except its kinda nice to have company. don’t tell her i said that tho  
although she has made me watch every lord of the rings and adjacent movie someone save me  
Sometimes you just gotta force your younger brother to watch one thousand hours of movies with you. I’m sure my sister would do the same  
  
Glad she’s keeping an eye out for you though  
  
tbh me too  
oh she’s yelling at me that this is the best part and i need to pay attention to it i guisajs gadskjgaadhkjjkadfgshfkdjajkagh  
???  
  
she stole my phone >:(  
LMAO that’s what you get for not watching the movie  
  
WHEN WILL EVERYONE STOP GANGING UP ON ME…… SO TRAGIC  
Can we get an F in the chat  
  
F x 10000000 everyone pat their respects  
I MEANT PAY FUCK  
B)  
  
shut uuuupppppppp  
ok i dont mean that but i am going to go watch the movie for real bc laura is threatening to steal my phone again so ttyl ty for checking in  


Allegra  
  
**Friday** 10:47 AM  
Simone and Jenna have an entire conspiracy theory abt your real reason for being gone jsyk  
Oh god  
  
I think it involves aliens I am not entirely sure  
Why are they like this  
  
No idea but they sure are dorks about it  
Im gonna tell them i think they’re aliens and that theyre just trying to cover it up  
Wow I cant believe all my coworkers are aliens  
  
Wait just kidding yes I can that explains literally everything  
  
MEAN!!!!!  


Tara  
  
**Friday** 3:47 PM  
Hey, Pat. How’s your week going?  
Pretty alright. Catching up on sleep. I saw Brian the other day. He seems to be doing better. I think his sister is home for the week too  
  
Good to hear. Glad you’re getting some rest. Thanks for checking in with him too.  
Of course  
  


Simone  
  
**Saturday** 8:05 PM  
Sent file: surprisedpikachuzoom.gif  
Why  
  
Sent file: surprisedpikachuintensifies.gif  
Did you make these yourself  
  
Why are you doing this to me  
  
Sent file: areallygoodtoadintensifies.gif  
WHY  
  
PLEASE LEAVE THAT IN THE PAST WHERE IT BELONGS  
  
Sent file: areallysadtoad.png  
If you send me one more nintendo image I’m blocking your number  
  
Sent file: gottagofast.gif  
I hate you  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (:
> 
> if anyone wants to make those gifs i will put them in. i did not feel like it but if you do i will credit you and you will have my undying affection


	5. v.

Brian isn’t waiting at Pat’s desk like he usually is on Monday morning. He’s at his own desk, and though it’s only like five feet away, Pat realizes he’s gotten used to Brian loitering, waiting for him, soliciting advice or attention or feedback or any other thing that Pat is always too asleep to give. But he doesn’t so much as look up, even though he must know Pat is there.

So that’s how they’re gonna play this, then.

Pat slumps down in his chair and boots up his computer, cradling his portable coffee mug as he waits for the damn thing to get a move on.

He has a backlog of emails that he really doesn’t want to look through. Most of them aren’t even specific to him; a couple newsletters from various things, some general emails to all the staff, one from Clayton that looks like a lab safety reminder, one from Jeff that’s asking for clarification on something of Pat’s, a second email from Jeff that simply reads “never mind Allegra figured it out,” and one from Tara to Pat and Brian reminding them of their meeting with her.

He replies to the few that actually do require his attention, then opens the files for his and Brian’s project. He scrolls absently through pages and pages of data, of writing, of math and charts and diagrams. A wave of exhaustion crashes over him just thinking about it. He glances over at Brian’s desk; Brian is paying Pat no mind. He hasn’t so much as said hello. Is he waiting for Pat to say something first? Is Pat overthinking this?

Pat shakes his head at himself, focusing back on his own screen. The numbers seem to blur together, so he flips back into the in-progress report. It’s on something like the fifth draft since he sent the first one out. He kills the next hour aimlessly fussing with phrasing and grammar, until he can finally call it reasonable to go to Tara’s office.

He stands with a sigh, and Brian hops to his feet in the next moment. So he has been paying attention to Pat, in some way or another. Brian gives Pat a nervous smile, and they fall in step together as they head towards Tara’s office.

“How was your weekend?” Pat says, finally breaking the silence between them.

“It was alright. Laura and I finished _Lord of the Rings_ and then Jonah made us watch _Star Wars_.”

“Not a fan?”

“Could take it or leave it, really. I slept through probably a solid third of the total runtime and spent the rest of it pointing out scientific errors to annoy them.”

“Remind me to never watch a movie with you.”

Brian laughs. “Yeah, I’m the worst.”

“Allegra’s always falling asleep during everything, too. When will I ever find someone who will actually watch a movie?”

“Never. You’re the only person in the world who will watch a movie, Pat Gill.”

“Dang. There go my hopes and dreams. Thanks, Brian.”

“Anytime!”

So things return to something approaching normal.

Well, except for the fact that Pat is perfectly aware of the fact that things are not normal.

He hadn’t realized how much Brian would tease him, how he would wink at him or shoot him a sly grin to punctuate a joke, how he would shove him gently if he said something particularly ridiculous, how he would lean casually on the back of Pat’s chair, how he would catch Pat’s eyes sometimes and Pat would go breathless with the intensity of his gaze.

All of these things have now evaporated into thin air.

Brian is so fucking careful around Pat now. He leaves cautious space between them at all times. He sits stiffly and carefully avoids getting closer to Pat than is strictly necessary. He doesn’t lean over Pat’s shoulder to read off his screen when Pat stops him as he walks by; he stands back a little ways and squints through his glasses until Pat tilts the screen up for him to see better.

Time in the lab is weird, too. Pat doesn’t want Brian to be in there unsupervised; Brian still hasn’t admitted to his flagrant breach of safety protocols and Pat still has said nothing. He rarely leaves Brian alone for longer than a bathroom break. Brian has cut his after-hours work significantly, but even so sometimes the both of them will get so caught up in what they’re doing that it’ll be mid-evening before they blink and they’ve forgotten entirely to take a break all day.

Pat is starting to think this might be weird. He’s been known to forget a meal now and again, too absorbed by whatever he’s working on to catch the time, but not with this frequency. He starts setting an alarm on his phone, with the most obnoxious ringtone he can find, and this usually manages to jolt the two of them out of their work-induced reverie. Except, well, sometimes it doesn’t, or it doesn’t go off, or something, and they’ll find themselves at five or six or seven or eight blinking at each other like _what the fuck just happened?_

Simone walks into the lab at the stroke of five one Friday, startling both Brian and Pat nearly out of their skin. Brian looks up from listing off data readouts from the spectrometer aloud to Pat, who has just jotted down the last number.

“What’s up, Simone?” Brian says.

“I have been sent to retrieve Patrick, and to tell both of you that it is now officially the weekend and you have to stop working or else. I’m not super sure what the _or else_ consists of, but I feel like it might be Tara grabbing you both by the scruff of your necks and throwing you out onto the sidewalk,” Simone says, quite cheerfully.

“Fair enough,” says Pat. “What do you need me for?”

“Allegra,” Simone says, which is more than enough explanation.

“Okay, give me ten minutes to pack up and tell Allegra to hold her damn horses.”

Simone snorts. “I’ll do my best.”

She leaves, and Brian and Pat are again alone in the room. They exchange a look.

“Well, you heard her, let’s get on out of here,” Pat says. Brian sighs, and starts shutting down the machine.

“You have plans?” Brian says, more of a statement tilted upwards than a question.

“Well, if I did, I didn’t know about them,” Pat says, and Brian laughs. “Allegra likes to plan things and say ‘hey Pat you’re coming with me’ instead of, I don’t know, letting me premeditate.”

“Is that better or worse for anxiety, do you think?” Brian says, carefully locking the sample inside its case, then crossing the room towards Pat to gather his notebook and tablet.

“Somehow, both! But I guess it’s good for me to get out and do things, or whatever.”

“True enough. I’m off to Maryland tonight, actually, so I’m glad Simone stopped us before we worked too late. It’s my mom’s birthday tomorrow,” he adds, by way of explanation. “Laura and I are surprising her.”

“That’s sweet. I hope you have a good time and the road trip doesn’t suck too bad. How far is that, anyway?”

“Approximately long enough for Laura and I to sing all the parts to a musical or two.”

Pat laughs. “I’m sure that’s a good time.”

Brian grins at him. “Yeah! I better get going, or else she’s gonna guilt me into letting her be Elphaba. Good luck with whatever Allegra’s got planned,” he says, and with a wave he exits the room.

Pat gets his things together more slowly, not wanting the awkward situation of already having said bye but then walking in the same direction. By the time he gets to his desk, Brian is long gone.

“Took you long enough,” says Allegra, and Pat rolls his eyes. She makes a face at him in return. She, as well as Simone and Jenna, have made themselves at home sitting on (in Simone’s case) and around (in chairs, like reasonable people) the desk.

“I didn’t realize there was a party, I would’ve brought a gift,” Pat says mildly, sliding his tablet into his bag and slinging it over his shoulder.

“It was a surprise party just for you!” Simone says.

“Lucky me.”

“Oh, don’t sulk, Patrick!” Allegra says. “We are all going out and it will be fun!”

“Ah. I see,” Pat says. “Girls’ and gay’s night, huh?”

“We can all commiserate about being attracted to men,” Simone says.

Pat glances at Allegra and narrows his eyes in suspicion. She smiles innocently. “Can’t hurt to talk about boy troubles, right, Pat?”

“I don’t have boy troubles. I never have and I never will.”

“That’s a lie, you had an entire crisis over how cute that one barista was like last year,” Simone says, hooking her arm through Pat’s as the group heads for the exit.

“I thought we were never talking about that again!” Pat says.

“Ooh, I sense a story,” Jenna says, grinning.

“There is no story and I did not talk to him even one time about anything that did not directly involve my coffee order and I’m ninety-nine percent sure he was straight, anyway,” Pat grouses.

“To be fair, I was ninety-nine percent sure you were straight until, uh, like two minutes ago when you said otherwise,” Jenna — the newest employee of the bunch — says.

“Not all of us are bold enough to have a cool undercut,” Pat says, with a little smile. Jenna shrugs, smiling, in agreement. “Some of us grew up in weird rural Maine and then move to the city and grow our hair out in a very quiet defiance of gender norms.”

“That is so fucking valid,” Simone says. She releases his arm and falls back to walk beside Jenna, who turns her sweet genuine smile Simone-ward. Jenna, he knows from the pins stuck to her bag, is bi, and Simone is very vocally bi and aromantic, and the two of them are roommates, and anything else on the topic is probably none of his business. Jenna links her arm with Simone’s.

“Where are we going?” Pat says, gracefully changing the subject.

“I am so glad you asked,” Allegra says. “It is the exact same freaking place that we always go.”

Once they are seated and have gotten through the requisite chips-and-salsa-and-guac-and-no-work-talk talk, Jenna looks over at Pat. Allegra has very slyly arranged their seating so she’s to the left of Pat and Simone and Jenna are to his right, so he is surrounded and incapable of escaping. Not that he would, probably, unless they start talking about Brian, in which case he would probably just ascend to the heavens in sheer discomfort.

“Do you mind me asking, Pat, if you’re out, generally speaking? I don’t want to accidentally say something to someone or something,” Jenna says.

“Oh,” Pat says, genuinely surprised by the courtesy, although he has no reason to be. “Kind of? I mean, I don’t really care who knows, it’s just that I don’t talk about it much unless it’s directly relevant. I also don’t, y’know, necessarily fall into any easily-categorizable stereotype, so most people assume I’m straight?” He shrugs. He’s skinny and gangly, scruffy and long-haired, and doesn’t tend to attract attention from any gender, though he knows from hard-worn experience that he doesn’t seem to signal in much of an outward way that he’s queer. For better or for worse.

Jenna laughs. “That’s fair. People tend to assume I’m a lesbian, but boys are good too!”

“I hate boys,” says Allegra, the only straight person at the table, to general laughter.

“Boys are the worst,” Pat concurs.

“Wait, for some reason I thought you were seeing someone?” Jenna says.

“I don’t know what’d bring you to that conclusion, but no. I haven’t had a partner since, uh, since like two years ago, right after I started here, when my ex and I broke up.”

“Man, that’s such a bummer,” Jenna says.

“Yeah, it sucked pretty bad,” Pat admits, very much not wanting to get into it. Luckily, Simone jumps in to save him.

“No bummers at this table! Only happy gays. And Allegra.”

“Legs, the token straight friend,” Allegra says solemnly.

“Exactly!” Simone says. “Okay, I decided, everyone has to tell one happy gay story, except Allegra, who — I dunno — who has to find the cutest possible cat picture.”

“That seems fair,” Jenna says. Allegra grins and pulls out her phone.

Pat must be making some sort of face, because Simone glances at him and quickly adds, “If you don’t have a story you want to share, you can find a cute cat picture too.”

Pat shoots her a relieved smile, and fishes his phone out of his pocket in case he needs an emergency picture of Charles. He pauses, though, to think about it genuinely. Maybe a couple weeks ago he’d have talked in vague terms about a guy he had a crush on, leave the time frame ambiguous, talk about how this guy had the sweetest smile and always made Pat laugh, and maybe those things are all still true but there’s such a stiff formality between them now that Pat can hardly bear to think about it.

As Pat has been ruminating, Simone has been talking about _Assassin’s Creed_, because she’s nearly always talking about _Assassin’s Creed_ when she’s not talking about science. Something about her crush on one of the characters, and about cuddling with someone as she showed them her favorite places in the game. Pat notices idly that Jenna is blushing.

Allegra passes her phone around to show everyone the pictures she’d taken last weekend of a friend’s cat. They are suitably adorable, and everyone (even, admittedly, Pat) coos over the multicolored toe beans and sweet little face.

“Pat, do you have a cat or a tale?” Simone says, and then realizes her inadvertent pun and makes sure everyone else realizes it too, giving Pat time to think.

He could pull up a picture of Charles and no one would bat an eyelash, but he’s so distant from any sense of community, hasn’t spent time with a group of queer people just talking about being queer since… god, maybe since his undergrad, and so he says, “I do have a tale.”

“Oh, good!” says Simone.

He dawdles some more by crunching thoughtfully on a chip. He doesn’t have a ton of stories, if he’s being honest. He realized he was gay when he was sixteen; he’d had a girlfriend and been dumped quite tragically, except he had the slowly-dawning realization that what he really missed was the loss of her friendship, not the kissing, ‘cause if he could kiss anyone it would be that sweet guy with the dark brown eyes who sat next to him in English and always pointed out lines to make Pat laugh — and well, it was sort of the first rock in the avalanche.

He hadn’t kissed the guy, nor anyone else at all until he moved out for his undergrad.

“When I was in college, like, living in the dorms, being a hot mess of a newly-out gay, as one does, I sort of spent my first year as a nervous wreck who was really, really excited to kiss boys and really, really bad at making good decisions about who I should be kissing,” he says. It is met with laughter.

“Ooh, Patrick, did you have a reputation?” Jenna teases.

“Hah! Not as such, though I did have some really nasty breakups. But that’s not the point. No bummers, Simone, I know, it ends up alright. I chilled out a whole lot by my second year, but at some point I was sulking real bad because I thought some guy and I were, like, exclusive, but he had not had the same impression and ended up kinda ditching me. And I was in the, whatcha call it? Everywhere calls it something different, the student union or whatever. Either way, I was there and I was sitting by the fuckin’ Starbucks or whatever trying not to cry about it, and this guy who was in one of my gen eds — man, must’ve been speech or something — saw me being a sad lump and sat right down next to me and was like, hey what’s going on?

“So I basically pretty much spilled everything and he was so nice about it, which was a big relief because even though I was kind of a disaster for a bit there I still wasn’t super out outside of the, like, queer circle, you know how that goes. But he didn’t even blink when I mentioned my whole drama was with another guy. We ended up talking for ages and I chilled out and at some point we stopped talking about how sad I was and started talking about whatever else came to mind. After that, we started getting lunch together after the class we were in — I think it was speech, yeah, ‘cause I remember we’d commiserate about how fucking anxious we got every time we had to do a presentation.”

“Oh mood,” Allegra says.

“You’re good at it, though,” Pat says.

“So are you!”

Pat shrugs her off and doggedly keeps talking. He’s gotten this far, he’s going to get through it. “Of course at the end of the year we both had to move back home from summer, and this was back in ye olden days when not everyone was necessarily texting. By which I mean, I had a shitty flip phone with one of those plans where you had to pay for minutes for each text or whatever, I hardly even remember how that worked, but basically what I’m saying is, I wasn’t sure if I was even going to talk to this man until the next school year, and he was an art student so really there was every chance I might not run into him again. So I got all my courage together and got his number. I don’t remember what excuse I gave, but it was almost certainly not ‘it makes my heart hurt a little to think about not talking to you for the next three months.’”

“That is so cute, Pat, oh my _god_,” says Simone.

“Shush, I’m not done. We ended up calling each other, like, all the time — he lived way the fuck at the other end of the state and neither of us had a car so it wasn’t like we could meet up — but oh my god, I had the worst crush on him. I assumed he was straight, because I always sort of assume that unless I know otherwise, because why get my hopes up, you know? So I kept it to myself, but I was probably super obvious anyway because, I don’t know if you know this, but I’m not exactly the most subtle person.”

Simone scoffs. Pat pointedly ignores this.

“When school started again, it ended up that we were in the same dorm building. I was leaving to get dinner after my parents left once my stuff was all moved in — I’m pretty sure I was so tired and hungry that I didn’t even bother to shower first, so I was super gross and sweaty — but he saw me as he was carrying his stuff in and he literally dropped the box he was holding to run over and hug me. And then introduced me to his parents? Who were right there? And then recruited me to help him take the rest of his shit upstairs. And then he took me out to dinner. And, uh, that’s what ended up being my first date with, uh, with my ex-fiance.”

“Gosh, Pat, that’s so sweet!” says Jenna, who had been paying rapt attention.

“Yeah, he was the best. We were together even for all my postgrad shit, if you can believe it, even though I’m neurotic as hell and was such a pain in the ass a lot of the time. He was so supportive. But it ended up, like, he didn’t want to leave Maine, I didn’t want to turn down this job, so we ended up splitting. We still talk occasionally, though. There’s no bad blood or anything. He’s got a show in a big gallery this summer; I’ll probably try to make it out there to see it and see my family and all that. I think he might have a new partner now? I haven’t really kept track. Anyway. Real great guy, real great person. I’m glad I got to spend the time with him that I did. I dunno. That’s sappy, I guess, but it’s true. I miss him sometimes, but I think we’re both doing pretty well now, so it’s alright.” Pat shrugs. It’s always a little bittersweet to talk about him, but he doesn’t often get a chance to, and it’s surprisingly nice to be heard.

“Pat, you weren’t supposed to give me all the feels,” Simone whines. “Only the happy ones.”

“Sorry. That’s the best gay story I’ve got. Deal with it.”

“It was very sweet,” Jenna puts in. “I hope you find someone that makes you that happy again, if you want to.”

“Me too,” Pat says, and can’t keep the wistfulness out of his smile.

He wishes Brian were here.

Allegra, in an attempt to lighten the mood, needles at Pat that he can’t do that if he doesn’t have a _social life, mister_, and Pat says _that’s doctor to you, Frank_, and they dissolve into their usual good-natured bickering before Jenna interrupts to tell them about a kitten that she and Simone found the other day, complete with pictures. Pat thinks this may be the intersection between both conversational prompts, and internally applauds her for her creativity.

“Simone insists she can’t live with cats ‘cause they’re too much like her, so we took him to the shelter. All the staff immediately fell in love, so I’m sure she’s going to find a perfectly good home,” Jenna finishes.

“That’s an interesting stipulation,” Allegra says.

Simone shrugs. “It’s the truth. Also, it’s not entirely my fault, Jenna is super allergic.”

Jenna pouts, and Simone flutters her eyelashes at her. Pat sips his drink so he doesn’t have to watch them keep flirting. It’s too damn sweet.

He may possibly have made himself sad. He may definitely want to go home.

A much rowdier and tipsier group leaves than the one that entered. Pat had made a devoted effort to chase his sadness away with the means available to him; his friends, for their part, had been able to tell when he was about to tip over the edge from _morose_ to _maudlin_ and made a dogged attempt to cheer him up, to get him to laugh. Which they did, to their credit, accomplish, for the most part. But now as Allegra convinces him into a Lyft, he can feel the sadness start to creep back.

He is quiet on the drive, drunk and sleepy and too aware of the driver’s ability to eavesdrop to say much. Allegra leans over and hugs him when they stop, before he gets out.

“Thanks, Allegra. I had a nice time.”

“Good. Drink some water and get some sleep, alright? Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” she says. This is code for _don’t text Brian or your ex in a fit of drunk sadness_. Fortunately, the one gift of his anxiety is that this is something Pat is not particularly inclined towards doing.

“Of course,” he says. “See you.”

He makes his lonely way back up the flights of stairs to his apartment, every step beginning to feel like an effort. Charlie meows at him plaintively as soon as he’s through the door, but it is quickly revealed that this is only because he hasn’t been fed yet this evening. Once there is food in his bowl, Pat might as well be a floor lamp to him.

Pat curls up in bed alone, and watches the lights from passing cars flicker across his bedroom wall until he can’t keep his eyes open anymore. He drifts into a fitful sleep, with snatches of dreams he can’t remember as soon as he turns his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in this house we make up backstory wholesale and we like it


	6. VI.

Pat’s life has begun to increasingly feel like a series of Mondays. Weeks fly by in a blur; weekends seem to slam the brakes and bring the flow of time to a screeching halt; and then after moping around for about forty-eight hours, of which Pat seems to feel every single second, it’s time to get back to the grind.

Pat’s working on more reports, now, more writeups and things to send out to be ignored like, presumably, the first round of submissions. He spends less time in the lab than Brian, now. Half of him is glad because he feels like he has a better grasp on his schedule when he’s not caught up in work there. Half of him is worried, too, because he hardly sees Brian anymore, and when he does, Brian still has that not-all-there aura and seems to be ten steps and three leaps of logic ahead of Pat at any given moment.

Pat isn’t the only one who’s concerned now, though. Clayton has been working in the lab again, mainly for other things, but he approaches Pat at the end of the day.

“Is Brian okay? He seems — I dunno, like something’s going on?”

Pat shrugs. Sighs. “I don’t know. Probably just focused,” he says. “You know how he gets.”

“I guess,” says Clayton, no more convinced than Pat himself. “Are things alright with the two of you? You were, like, inseparable, but I’ve hardly seen you in the same room in ages.” He pauses, shifts uncomfortably. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Yeah, no, yeah, you’re fine. Things are totally fine. Just working on separate parts of the project right now. Gotta get these reports done. Gotta get the research done. Someone’s gotta do it.”

Clayton raises his eyebrows, but doesn’t press. “Well, I’ll keep an eye out for him anyway. I keep having to drag him out of the lab so he eats lunch.”

“Thanks for doing that. He needs to take a break sometimes.”

“For real. You want to come with me and Jeff for dinner?”

“Yeah, sure. Let me get my stuff together.”

And:

“Pat, have you seen Brian today?” says Simone, midafternoon.

“No, he usually gets in before I do, and he’s been working in the lab lately. Why?”

“Huh. I went by there earlier and he wasn’t there. Maybe he was at lunch?”

The door to the computer room clicks open, then, and Brian walks in. He is reading something on his tablet, eyebrows drawn, and doesn’t so much as look up at Pat and Simone, though he surely must have registered their presence.

Pat and Simone exchange a look.

And, too:

“Has anyone seen Brian out of the lab at all in the past, like, two weeks?” Tara says, as she approaches the small group that has gathered around Allegra’s computer, definitely not to watch a video she found of a really cute dog.

There is a chorus of _no_.

“If I find out he’s working overtime again, I _will_ change the locks, don’t think I won’t,” Tara says. Pat snorts. “Though I will say he’s quite dedicated. Unlike some other people I could mention. What are you guys even watching?”

“Nothing!” Allegra says quickly, as a very fluffy Samoyed puppy hops around on her screen.

“Uh-huh. Okay. Get back to work, you nerds.”

Pat finds out via email, not long after that, that Tara has changed the settings on the locks so that on weekends and past seven on weekdays you can’t get in without her or Clayton. Pat wonders if Brian had been there in the dead of night again.

He wonders if Brian would still call him if he made a breakthrough.

And even still:

Pat’s on a roll with the draft he’s working on, so he stays late, but when he realizes it’s almost seven and he hears a janitor locking up a storage closet, he realizes he should probably head home. He stands and stretches, and looks around the room. Brian’s things are still at his desk, and Pat sighs quietly to himself. He might as well go fetch him. He’s hardly seen the dude in what feels like ages, and it wouldn’t hurt to catch up on at least a couple work-related things he’s been meaning to ask about.

He opens the door to the lab, and is flooded by brilliant yellow-green light spilling out of the room.

_Fuck_, he should have expected this.

Brian is standing in the center of the room, scribbling notes frantically without so much as looking down at what he’s writing. His eyes are fixed straight ahead, at the glowing crystal, as the machine clicks and whirrs. Two of the safety lights are red and blinking — they have been manually turned off. As Pat watches, the sounds of the machine working grow louder until something _finally_ kicks on and shuts the whole thing down.

Pat hears Brian curse and go for the controls.

Pat turns away and closes the door as quietly as he can, and starts to formulate a plan.

The next morning, precisely at ten o’clock, Pat walks into the lab. Brian is doing exactly what he is supposed to be doing (_for once_, Pat can’t help but think, and then feels bad about it), but he doesn’t look up from his work until Pat says “hey.”

“Oh, hey, Pat! What’s going on?” Brian says, amiably enough. He puts his pen down and stands.

Pat runs his hands through his hair and steels himself. He’s thought about this. He knows what he’s going to say.

“What were you doing in here last night? I came in to see if you were still here and you were doing something with two of the safety mechanisms on the spectrometer shut down and one of the samples that we have _not_ included in our study yet.”

Brian opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. He looks _angry_, suddenly.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Brian says.

“Uh, hold up, why didn’t _you_ say anything? If you’re going against protocol you need a damn good reason to do so, and explicit permission, and I should be notified. But I saw you do almost the same exact thing the day before our presentation and you never said a word about it to me. You told me straight-up that you’d only been working on our presentation.”

Brian looks angry still, but Pat thinks, maybe a little afraid? Brian shakes his head and narrows his eyes at Pat. “You’ve been sneaking around and now you’re turning my own question back on me?”

“Well, first of all, I don’t think that what I did can really be classified as _sneaking_, because I was in the earlier case coming back to work with you on our assigned project at the time at which I was supposed to be there, and yesterday I was coming by to see if you were leaving yet, because I do in fact care whether or not you work yourself to death. On the other hand, I think _sneaking_ can pretty well cover breaking, like, fifteen different rules about lab safety and doing things that, rules aside, you almost definitely shouldn’t be doing anyway.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” says Brian, which is a pretty fucking bold claim. Pat’s eyebrows shoot upwards and he crosses his arms.

“Oh? Care to enlighten me, then?”

Brian crosses the room, stops right in front of Pat, fucking _glaring_ up at him, all two inches of height difference between them minimized by the way Brian leans up towards him. Pat has never seen Brian mad like this; he’s never even imagined such a thing, but Brian is nearly shaking.

“I am finding the fucking _answers_,” Brian says, articulating his syllables cleanly, “that everyone seems perfectly fine taking ages and _ages_ to work up to. Isn’t it obvious? We’ve already submitted reports. Other people are going to know about this, Patrick. They probably already do. And they are _not_ going to get to it first.”

“Whoa,” says Pat, holding his palms up, taking a step back. “Brian, don’t you think you’re —”

“I’m what, Pat? I’m fucking _right?_ I’m the expert on this. I’m the one who has been in here doing the legwork. You haven’t seen what I’ve seen. You’ve only scratched the surface. I know what I’m doing. I’m the one who has to see this out. Anyone with better technology, a more powerful machine, will be able to get farther than I have in all this time in a single _day_, and that is absolutely unacceptable. And, for the record, it’s not like I’ve been reckless. I’ve taken it in small steps. I’ve worked my way up to the samples I’ve been examining. It’s not like I’ve turned off all the safety mechanisms at once — I just need more _time_ before it shuts down. I know what I’m doing. I know what I’m going to find. I just need time. I’m so fucking close, Patrick, don’t take this from me, not now.”

Pat stares at him in utter shock. Dismay. Horror. He opens his mouth to speak, frantically trying to find the words for what he wants to say, but before he can get a word out, the door behind him clicks upen. He and Brian both startle and turn to see Clayton.

“Whoa, hey, what’s going on?” Clayton says, surely picking up on the tension in the room, on account of the fact that there is a real fuckin’ lot of it. Or, at the very least, that Brian and Pat are staring at him wide-eyed like a couple of deer in headlights.

“Nothing, just catching up on a few things. Pat was just going, we won’t be in your way,” Brian says breezily.

Pat hadn’t been angry. Just scared. Hurt. Worried. But at this, he feels a lightning bolt of rage shoot through him, furious at how Brian has completely shut him down and out of the conversation.

He says nothing. He brushes past Clayton and all but storms out of the room.

He has absolutely no fucking idea what to do now, if there is apparently nothing he can do to stop him.

Pat makes a point to drop by the lab at least once a day, after that. Brian doesn’t yell at him again, doesn’t get visibly angry, but Pat wouldn’t call him friendly by any stretch of the imagination. He is curt, cursory, answers Pat’s questions to the letter and gives no more. Pat does not overtly press him on what he’s doing when Pat’s not around, because for one Pat already knows, and for another he doubts Brian would even tell him anymore.

It makes him feel a little sick to admit it, but he thinks he might be a little afraid of him. Of what he’s doing. Of whatever the fuck is going on here. He feels a tug in his chest when he’s away from the lab, like he should be there, too.

He can’t sleep. Every time he closes his eyes he jolts awake again with some weird frantic-anxious energy. By six in the morning, he abandons the concept wholesale and gets ready for work. He’s there by eight, already daydreaming about leaving an hour early to make up for his arrival time.

It’s quiet, without everyone around. He glances around for any signs of life, and his chest tightens with anxiety when he sees Brian’s bag at his desk.

Pat cautiously makes his way to the lab, bracing for the worst and hoping for the best.

What he sees when he opens the door makes him want to fall to his knees and weep.

The room is filled with yellow-green light again. Tiny lightning bolts, green-gold-yellow, hundreds of thousands of them, prick the inside of the glass of the spectrometer. The crystal inside the glass is as big as his head, a pure golden-yellow. Pat can almost feel it, somehow, feel the radiant power from it.

As Pat stares, wide-eyed, the lightning condenses into a ball of green light, expanding beyond the size of the crystal and shooting upwards, out the top of the machine. The light and energy gathers into an orb that grows larger, spreads out, and somehow seems to get _deeper_ in a way that Pat can’t explain. Like it’s denser, like it’s holding something or growing something or pulling something into existence or —

Or like it’s reaching somewhere, in a direction that Pat can’t articulate. Like it’s opening a door.

Pat shakes himself out of his trance and sprints across the room. He slams both hands down on the power switch.

Brian _howls_, like it’s killing him, like someone has yanked everything ever wanted right out of his hands.

The light is still there. It’s not gone, not like the other times that Pat has seen the machine shut down. There is still a tangible-intangible opaque-transparent green orb in the air. It almost hurts to look at it.

“Brian,” Pat says, his voice shaking, his whole _body_ shaking. “What the fuck have you done?”

Brian is beyond words. In an instant he’s face-to-face with Pat, both hands fisted in the lapels of Pat’s coat like he’s about to shove him, to hurt him, or — Pat thinks wildly — to drag him in and kiss him.

But Brian takes a shuddering breath and releases Pat and turns his back to him. He drags his hands through his own already-wild hair.

“What the fuck, Pat Gill?” Brian says, after a long moment, turning back to face him. “Why did you turn it off?”

Pat stares at him, dumbfounded. He gestures at the slowly-fading green light. “Hello?” he says. “What the fuck is this?”

“It’s the start of the rift, Pat, fucking obviously! Are you kidding me? You really showed up early the one _fucking_ day I’m about to make the biggest breakthrough in modern physics just to shut it down? What is wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with _me?”_

Brian is pacing. His eyes are wild. “I can’t believe you’ve done this.”

“I don’t know why you’re blaming me for this! You had _every fucking safety mechanism_ switched off. You have the sample we barely have permission to so much as _touch_. You are trying to tear open a rift in dimensions and you have halfway to succeeded! Jesus fucking Christ, Brian, we have _no fucking idea_ what could happen if you’d gotten the rest of the way through with this! What would have happened to this place? What would have happened to _anything?_ Brian, what would have happened to you?” His voice goes plaintive, almost, at the end, and he can’t _help_ it.

“It doesn’t matter,” Brian says through gritted teeth. “It doesn’t fucking matter, as long as I did it.”

“What are you talking about? What if you’d, fuck, what if you’d, like, sucked the whole building into the next dimension with yourself in it? The whole city? What if you’d _died_, Brian? How’s that for your scientific pursuits if you can’t report it because you’re fucking dead?” He hates hates hates how his voice is going strangled as he fights back tears with every ounce of willpower. The light still shines over their heads, fading with each passing second. It is, he thinks, beautiful, and horrifying.

Brian doesn’t have a clever response for that. He just stares at Pat, anger and outrage and betrayal and hurt and —

Pat hears a noise from behind him and turns around slowly. Brian follows his gaze.

Tara, Simone, Jenna, and Clayton are all at the door, staring at them and at the orb over their heads.

“Brian. Patrick.” Tara sighs, shakes her head. “I think you have a _lot_ of explaining to do.”

Pat’s heart sinks into the fucking _ground_.

Ten minutes later, the group of them are crowded into Tara’s office, moving things off surfaces to find places to sit. Brian is sitting stiffly next to Pat on the rarely-used couch and fucking _seething_. Pat is intensely, immensely uncomfortable. Simone and Jenna are in the chairs facing Tara’s desk; Clayton is leaning against the bookcase just inside the door; and Tara is in her desk chair with her arms crossed, facing Pat and Brian.

“I don’t care which one of you I hear it from first, but I need to know why a picture-perfect real-life representation of the start of a resonance cascade — something we have _only ever seen in diagrams for very good reason_ — was in my lab, how it got there, and also what in god’s name has gotten into either of you that made you think this was an okay thing to do behind my back,” Tara says.

“It wasn’t Pat,” Brian says hoarsely. “He shut it down.”

Tara raises her eyebrows and looks at Pat for him to verify this claim. He nods.

“I couldn’t sleep, so I came in early thinking I might as well so I could maybe head home early tonight. I saw Brian’s things at his desk, and — well, I knew something was up, so I went by the lab.”

“How’d you know something was up?”

Pat sighs. This part, he wishes he didn’t have to confess. “I saw Brian conducting experiments with certain safety mechanisms deactivated manually, two separate times. I’d been trying to keep an eye on him, but between the reports I’ve been working on and my other obligations, I haven’t been able to do that all the time.”

“Brian, is this true?”

Brian sighs and nods. He runs a trembling hand through his hair.

“Pat, why didn’t you come to me about this?”

Now it’s Pat’s turn to sigh. “I have no good reason. I’m sorry, Tara, I know I should’ve brought it to your attention right away, but I thought I’d be able to handle the situation and talk Brian out of it.”

Tara’s lips press together in a flat line. “Well, certainly that wasn’t the case. It was very lucky, though, that you were in the right place at the right time this morning, if it’s accurate that you were the one to shut it down?”

“It is. The last time I was a witness to something like this, it was not to this extent, and I spoke to Brian about it the next day. We argued, and Clayton entered the room before we came to a satisfactory resolution.” Jesus, where is he getting these words from? He’s so anxious it’s gone all the way back around into deadly calm. “Brian told him that I was just leaving, which is a pretty effective conversation finisher.”

Pat flicks his eyes to Brian; to his credit, Brian winces. He seems, Pat thinks, to be a bit more present now than he was when they first sat down. At the very least, less furious.

“I tried to stop by the lab as often as I could after that, but like I said, that wasn’t all that often. I don’t know what was going on when I wasn’t there.”

Tara nods. She looks at Brian. “How often were you conducting these trials?”

Brian takes a deep breath. He pushes his glasses up to his forehead and runs his hands down his face. When he looks at Tara again, he blinks several times. He looks like he’s slowly waking up after being roused mid-REM cycle, like he’s slowly surfacing through something viscous.

“For the past week, every day,” Brian confesses. His voice is thin. Pat reaches down into his bag and pulls out his water bottle, hands it over to Brian wordlessly. Brian pauses his testimony to drink deeply from it. When he closes it, he keeps holding it for something to do with his hands, and when he speaks again, he sounds a little better. “I would say — probably every couple days, if not every other day, for a couple weeks preceding.” He pauses again, deliberating, then seems to come to a conclusion. He takes a steadying breath and continues.

“I first went outside the bounds of our study the week before Pat and I presented at that meeting. That’s where this all started. I have all my notes. Pat didn’t know about any of this, aside from what he witnessed directly. I kept it to myself, intentionally, and I thought it was the right thing to do, but I think… I think maybe it was really probably the worst thing I could have done, and — god, I really am sorry.”

Brian’s eyes seem clearer than Pat has seen in weeks. The rage has drained right out of him; he looks more worried than anything, now.

And for good fucking reason. Pat’s not sure he’s ever seen Tara so upset.

“I would hope so, Dr. Gilbert,” she says softly. _Shit_. “It seems as though you’ve come to that revelation a bit late. Any thoughts on why?”

Brian is quiet. He fidgets with the lid of Pat’s water bottle. Tara, though, is determined to wait him out; every set of eyes in the room is on Brian, whose ears are red and whose hands are shaking as he _click, click, click_s the lid.

“This is going to sound — weird,” Brian says, to the water bottle, not looking up. “But. I feel like — I feel like this is the first time I’ve been able to think straight in weeks. Months? Like I needed something to smack some sense into me, or something. I — I was so caught up. I wasn’t sleeping, I wasn’t doing anything but working or thinking about work, I wouldn’t _stop_, I couldn’t turn it off. I thought it was some sort of manic episode or something but — they just don’t last this long, the crash would fucking kill me. And they’re different, usually, the symptoms don’t usually show up like this, and I’ve been on medication for _years_ and wow that’s too much information. I’m sorry. But, I —”

He glances up, looks at Tara, looks at Pat, looks back down.

“— I read, back at the beginning of this, some anecdotal essays about people getting way, way too invested in testing and studying Xen crystals and all this, especially in a practical setting — there were stories about people working themselves into the ground, until they physically couldn’t handle it anymore, to the exclusion of everything else in their lives. I didn’t think anything of it then. Thought it was just — well, a rumor. A bunch of scientists working too hard. Now I’m starting to wonder if there might really be something to it. But I don’t know. Maybe I’m just losing it.”

Brian closes his eyes for a moment; opens them again and looks back at the water bottle to continue to avoid eye contact. _Click. Click. Click. Click_.

“I’ve seen that stuff too,” Simone says, as the silence in the room drags out. “I felt super weird after running those preliminary tests Jenna and I did ages ago, like I’d lost the whole day. I couldn’t stop thinking about it for days, but I had other priorities and I ended up just fine. But I definitely came across that in some of my background reading.”

“I did too,” Tara says. “I didn’t put any stock into it at the time. But I think we’ve all noticed Brian has been acting strangely lately.”

Pat sees Brian grimace, out of the corner of his eye. There is a general murmur of sheepish assent.

“Why wouldn’t it affect Pat, though?” Tara continues, more thinking aloud than anything.

“I spent a lot less time in the lab,” Pat posits. “Brian was working late nights and weekends all the time, especially at first; even after you changed the locks, he was still working in the lab while I was working on reports. If it’s something to do with exposure to the samples, he was around them a whole lot more than I was. And we really don’t know a lot about the crystals, much as I think any of us don’t really want to admit it. We know they’re capable of dimensional shifts. We don’t know a lot about their effects on humans. Hell, Brian offhandedly mentioned weeks ago they might be ambiently radiant and no one’s even checked up on that, which is, uh, sort of a big deal?”

“That’s why I was hesitant to take on this project in the first place,” Tara says. “I admit I didn’t take the reports of people being… overly caught up in their work all that seriously, but I was aware that working with Xenium could have unexpected effects. I hoped putting you into teams would help, but obviously that wasn’t able to — well, prevent this from happening.”

She sighs. “Brian, Pat, I’m going to be honest. I would be perfectly within my rights to tell both of you to pack up and leave right now.”

Pat’s heart skips a horrified beat; he hears Brian draw a sharp breath.

“Patrick, you should have reported to me immediately when you witnessed a breach in protocol. Brian, you went behind everyone’s back and performed experiments that put yourself and everyone else at serious risk.”

Tara pauses to let this sink in.

“But I’m not letting either of you go.”

Pat feels like he can breathe again. Brian’s head jerks up and he stares wide-eyed at Tara.

“I’m going to have to file a report,” she says. She shakes her head and sighs, almost fondly. “But you’re both far too smart for your own good.”

Simone visibly fights back an entirely inappropriate-for-the-situation giggle. Tara doesn’t seem to notice.

“Plus, you have a lot of research on the subject, right? Brian, you said you kept all your notes from your… extrajudicial experiments?”

“Yes. I took them by hand, but I have them in a notebook. I, uh, think it’s still in the lab, but it’s all there.”

“Good. I’m going to halt labwork on this project completely. The samples will be put under high security, and will not be accessible. The two of you are going to write the most extremely goddamn thorough report on the face of the earth about every single thing that you have found. And I do mean everything. All the other teams will be refocused to purely theoretical research or analyzing the data that has already been gathered. I’ll send an email out in a little bit.”

Tara sighs, and continues. “Y’all, please don’t go around gossiping, okay? I’d rather make an official announcement before you tell everyone what happened. I’m setting you loose — Brian and Pat, you’re going to stay here a minute — maybe go get breakfast or something so you aren’t tempted to prematurely pass along the conversation. Of course you’re more than welcome to discuss things amongst your colleagues after I’ve addressed it, but I would rather be the one to spread this knowledge. Are we clear on that?”

The response is a slightly-intimidated _yes_ from all corners.

The others are dismissed from the room; they go quietly. Brian and Pat exchange a brief, nervous look, before turning back to Tara.

Tara gives them the most long-suffering look Pat has ever seen.

“If either of you does anything like this again, I’m not going to be so lenient. I am _extremely_ disappointed to hear that this has happened, and I’m trusting you both now to get the facts together and write this report, so we can start piecing things together and get more minds on the topic. I would like you to compile as much about this… whatever it is, that’s been going on with Brian. Whatever you can put together. Also, Brian, if you don’t mind bringing me the rest of your notes? I’ll be stopping by the lab once we’re done here, so I can pick up what you’ve got there, but if you have any other notes I do need to see them.”

“The notebook in the lab has pretty much everything I’ve got that you haven’t seen. Everything else is on my tablet, but it’s all notes on the main project. I can send them to you anyway,” Brian says.

“Please do. I’m also going to revoke both your access to the lab for the time being. If you need anything from there, come to me directly. Pat, can you give me your notes as well?”

“Yeah. I don’t have any handwritten ones. I’ll email you what I’ve got as soon as I’m at my desk.”

“Thank you. You can both get started today on writing the report. I don’t have a timeline for you yet on when I’ll want that by; I will let you know if and when that changes. Brian, I’ll return your notebook when I’m done looking it over, since you’ll need your notes for the report. However, you can certainly get started without them.”

“Okay,” says Brian. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Now go on, both of you. We’ve got a lot of mess to clean up, but we’re gonna get there. We’ll meet up and check in sometime next week and see how you’re both doing.”

“Thank you, Tara,” Pat says, as sincerely as he possibly can.

She smiles at him, to his utter shock. “Hey, you’re both pretty good at what you do, despite all this. Plus I’d rather hear from you directly about the work you’ve done. Now shoo, I’ve gotta go take care of the lab.”

Pat duly shoos, and Brian is but a half-step behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> local scientist gets too caught up in work: more at 11


	7. VII.

From: Patrick Gill

Subject: Research Notes

To: Tara Long

Attached:  XENReportNotes.doc  XENLabData.xlsx 

Hi Tara,  
Here are my notes from all of the research Brian and I conducted. Thank you so much for your help and for your understanding.

Patrick Gill, PhD  
Research Lead, Polygon  
(111) 223-4545 | pgill@polygon.sci  
890 Address St., NYC | http://polygon.sci

From: Tara Long

Subject: HIGH IMPORTANCE Research Changes & Updates

To: Polygon Staff

Good morning,  
Due to an incident in the lab today, we will be halting ALL lab work re: Xen crystals and related projects. The main lab will be fully closed for the next week or so; if you need anything from there please ask me directly. No one was harmed in the incident, however, we will be taking precautions to ensure this doesn’t happen again before we reopen the main lab for work. The auxiliary labs will remain open as usual. If there are further questions or concerns, please speak to me privately. I will be closing up the lab and be away from my office for the next hour or so, but after that I will be available all day.

Clayton, Simone, and Jenna — please see me before the end of the day to discuss what your assignments will be in lieu of work in the lab.

Thank you,  
Tara Long, PhD  
Executive Director, Polygon  
(111) 222-3344 | tlong@polygon.sci  
890 Address St., NYC | http://polygon.sci 

Brian doesn’t stop at his own desk. He follows Pat to his, and sits down in the extra chair that lives there specifically for him. Pat sits too, and looks at him. He looks dead on his feet; pale and drained. That vital vibrant energy that he’s always radiated seems to have been sucked away by the events of the morning. He sort of looks like he’s going to cry.

“Hey,” says Pat, “c’mere.”

He holds an arm out for Brian, a little cautiously in case Brian doesn’t want to be touched. Brian immediately all but collapses into Pat’s arms, his hands clutching tight at the back of Pat’s shirt, his face buried against Pat’s chest. His shoulders shake, but he is silent other than his ragged breathing. Carefully, so carefully, Pat runs his fingers through Brian’s hair. Brian gives a whole-body shiver at Pat’s touch and clings to him harder. He can’t be comfortable like this, half-falling off his chair, but he’s crying into Pat’s shoulder and he’s warm and shaking and scared and Pat makes soft comforting noises at him until he’s not trembling any longer, until he sits back and wipes at his face with the back of his hand and grimaces at the tearstains he has left on Pat’s shirt. Pat waves his concern away.

“How’re you feeling?” Pat asks quietly.

“Pretty awful,” Brian confesses, just as softly. He does look like it, and Pat feels bad for thinking so, but it’s true. It looks like a stiff wind could knock him over.

“When was the last time you even slept a whole night?”

“God, uh, jeez. Probably — gosh, probably that one time I spent the night at your place.”

“Shit, Brian, really?”

Brian winces. “Yeah. Things have been — I’ve been — a lot lately.”

Pat considers this for a moment. “You really think there was some sort of… thing that happened to you?”

“Patrick, I’m a scientist. I don’t say shit unless I have a damn good reason to think it’s true.” There is no anger in his voice, only resignation. “I don’t know much, but I know something has been fucking me up real hard lately. I swear this is the first time I’ve felt anything approaching normal in weeks.”

“You look like you need to go lay down.”

“I feel like garbage, honestly. I’d ask to go home, but I don’t want to push it with Tara.”

“Fair enough,” Pat says. He feels rattled too, if he’s being truthful with himself. “Let’s… well, let’s at least look like we’re doing something, I guess.” He double-clicks on Word and drums his fingers on the desk waiting for it to load. Brian scoots his chair forward and puts his head down on the desk, pillowed in his arms. It is all Pat can do not to reach out and run his hand through Brian’s hair again, but he knows the time for that has certainly passed.

Tara comes by a while later, presumably on her way back from the lab. Brian and Pat, through their combined efforts, have managed to compose one single sentence.

“You both look like shit,” she says.

“Thanks, I’m flattered,” Pat says dryly. Brian merely blinks at her; his head is still down on the desk. He doesn’t seem to have the energy to move.

“You can get to your notes remotely, can’t you? Just take it home, you guys, make a Google doc so you can both get to it. I don’t care if you’re working from home for a while. Not like everyone else doesn't do it when they need to write. Hell, I haven't seen the McElroys in person in two months. I’ll let you know if you’re needed in the office, but really, it might be good for you to get some space.”

Pat doesn’t need to be told twice. “If you’re sure,” he hedges, just to be polite.

“Of course. Go on, I know you’re going to sleep for the rest of the day, and that’s fine. As long as you’re getting things done at a reasonable pace, I don’t mind. Share the document with me so I can keep an eye out.”

“Okay. That sounds good. Thank you, Tara,” Pat says. He nudges Brian’s foot with his own, because he’s not entirely sure if he’s fully conscious. Brian echoes Pat’s thanks, and Tara shakes her head, smiling.

“Bye, you two,” she says, and leaves the room.

Brian sits up, with visible effort.

“Pat,” he says, “this is maybe dumb, and you can of course say no, because the last time went so badly, but — do you want to come over? I — I don’t really want to be alone right now. I can call Laura, though, if you don’t —”

“Of course,” Pat says, cutting off his anxious ramble before he can really get started. “Get your stuff together and we can head out.”

Simone  
  
I saw Tara talking to you guys and now youre leaving??? Did she change her mind??????  
  
No, thank god  
  
Brian was practically falling asleep on my desk and she told us in not so many words to gtfo and get some rest & some space & work from home for a while  
  
Don’t think it’ll be a bad idea for him to be like… away from stuff for a bit lmao  
  
Yeah no shit, did you see him in Tara’s office? He looked like he was coming back from outer space or something  
  
Yeah  
  
Don’t tell him I told you this but the second he sat down at my desk afterwards he straight up started crying. I think he feels real bad about all this  
  
I do too tbh. What a hot mess  
  
GOD how am I gonna explain all of this to anyone else it sounds 100% made up  
  
By anyone I mean allegra obviously  
  
LOL  
  
She’s coming w me and Jenna to lunch today so I think we can handle that explanation lol  
  
Fwiw I believe Brian  
  
I do too I think  
  
I don’t think he’d make something like that up and use it as an explanation to a bunch of physicists. It’s too goddamn weird. And it rly does seem like hes snapped out of some sort of haze. If other ppl have experienced it that seems like reasonable supporting evidence  
  
I mean… I did  
  
Experience it I mean  
  
Not to the extent he did obv but it was like. This weird compulsion to not… Stop  
  
Well I’m glad that you both managed stopping at some point  
  
Ok I’m leaving now I’m sure I’ll talk to you later  
  
Ooh have fun with Bri ;)  
  
:rolling_eyes:  
  


Brian is spacey on the commute to his apartment, but in a wholly different way than he has been lately. He’s quiet, and sleepy, and leans against Pat’s shoulder a little, the carefully-put distance between them seemingly gone after Pat hugged him. They are greeted by Brian’s cat when they walk in the door; he meows plaintively at them until Pat crouches down and pets his ears, and then he’s suddenly not interested in either of them anymore. Pat laughs as Zuko trots away.

“Fickle little thing,” Brian says affectionately, as Pat stands.

“Aren’t they all,” Pat says. He follows Brian to the couch, which is strewn with blankets and pillows as though someone habitually nests there. Brian curls up at one end of the couch, and Pat shoves an armful of pillows towards the other side so he can sit down next to him.

“I know we’re technically supposed to be working,” Brian says, “but what if we put on a movie instead?”

“That seems ideal to me,” Pat says. Brian needs no more encouragement than that to dig the remote out of a blanket on the floor and start scrolling through Netflix. He selects the first movie that Pat offhandedly mentions he likes. Pat’s seen it a half-dozen times, probably, and knows all the story beats, and the pile of cozy things to his right is basically shoulder-height, so he feels alright about settling against it to not really pay attention and let the movie be background noise.

Brian looks between the TV and Pat and the much comfier setup Pat has going on and then back to the TV and then back to Pat again, and Pat’s pretty sure he’s trying to telegraph something, and he’s pretty sure he knows what that something is, so he raises his eyebrows.

“Wishing you’d taken this spot instead?” Pat says lightly.

“Maybe,” Brian says. He looks like he’d like to say more; he looks equally like he is far too nervous to say more.

Pat shakes his head fondly, huffs out a short laugh. “You can ask, if you want me to share.”

“Oh,” says Brian, whose eyes have gone wide. “I didn’t know that was an option.”

“It’s always an option,” Pat says softly. “All you have to do is ask first.”

“Can I — can I come over there?” He looks so nervous, even though Pat all but invited him.

Pat, in response, holds an arm out for Brian. Brian hesitates for only a moment before crawling over to tuck himself against Pat, both of them bumping into each other with shy, nervous giggles as they get situated. Eventually, Pat’s turned sideways, his legs up on the couch, his back against the mountain of blankets; Brian is sprawled out in a long line next to him, pressed against each other from Pat’s shoulders down, ‘cause it’s not like the couch is that wide. Brian’s head is on Pat’s chest, over his heart. Pat hopes he can’t tell how it’s racing. Pat’s arm is around his shoulders, careful, casual, ostensibly so Brian doesn’t lay on it until it falls asleep.

Brian _sighs_ as he relaxes against Pat, an exhalation of stress so profound that it seems to come from deep in his bones. He’s so warm; he’s a heavy, solid weight against Pat’s side. It aches, to have him this close, but in a way that isn’t so ardently painful, shading towards wistful instead.

Not ten minutes into the movie, Brian’s breathing evens out, and he is dead asleep on Pat. Selfishly, indulgently, Pat trails his fingers through the soft waves of Brian’s hair. Sleeping Brian sighs and snuggles closer.

Pat tilts his head to the side a bit, so he can rest it against the pillows but still look at Brian, whose lips are slightly parted and whose arm is draped across Pat’s midsection and who looks more calm, more peaceful, than Pat has ever seen him.

When Pat’s eyelids get heavy, he doesn’t fight it, either.

Pat is startled awake an indeterminate amount of time later by someone clattering noisily into the apartment, and his jerk of surprise rouses Brian, who makes a sleepy _whhuh?_ sound and blinks confusedly at Pat. Pat turns to look over his shoulder at the front door; a woman who looks _very fucking disarmingly_ like Brian is looking back at Pat.

“Laura, ‘zat you?” says Brian, pushing himself into something closer resembling a sitting position, squinting over Pat’s shoulder.

“I wasn’t expecting you to be home, jeez, you both scared the crap out of me!”

“Sorry,” Brian says. “Laura, this is Pat Gill. Pat, this is my sister and roommate Laura. We got sent home early,” Brian adds in Laura’s direction. “I’ll tell you about it later. There were — some issues in the lab. Everything’s fine, everyone’s fine, I just made some real dumb shitty mistakes. But it’s fine, it’s fine, really, stop making that face, I still have my job, Pat still has his job, we’re just sequestered to writing reports for the foreseeable future because I was being a reckless dumbass. So we’re working from home.”

Laura raises her eyebrows. “Ah, yes, I can see that. Taking naps and watching movies. Really requires two combined PhDs in physics.” She breaks character and laughs at Brian’s petulant expression. “No, c’mon, I’m glad you’re okay and that you’re getting some rest, so long as you’re not in too much trouble. Honestly, you look less dead than I’ve seen you in ages.”

“Thanks,” Brian says, wrinkling his nose in an expression of mild affront. Pat feels a little awkward, witnessing this conversation but not participating; Brian seems to catch this, because the next thing he says is directed to both Pat and Laura: “Want to order food or something?”

“Ooh, I’ll go get it if it’s not too far away and you pay,” Laura says.

“Call too and you’ve got a deal,” Brian bargains.

Laura laughs, but acquiesces easily enough. “Fine, okay, what do you guys want?”

They settle on Thai after some squabbling between siblings, and Laura disappears off to her room to put down her things and order their food. Brian settles carefully back into his previous spot, then freezes.

“This still okay?” he asks Pat, in nearly a whisper.

“Yeah, ‘course,” says Pat, and the returning smile from Brian lights up his whole face. They’re probably going to have to talk about… something about this, at some point. But right now, Pat’s just fucking _glad_ to have him here, have that sweet smile directed at him, have him present and still and boneless-relaxed against Pat. He won’t lie to himself — there’s a not-insubstantial part of him that wants to cup Brian’s face in his hands and kiss him until he can’t anymore, but he’s so happy to simply have his arm around him that even that wanting-place is appeased.

Laura flits around the apartment, singing to herself, and Pat doesn’t even feel like he’s supposed to tense up or move away from Brian, because Brian is so fucking calm. They’re not talking; Brian is drowsily laying against him, absentmindedly fidgeting with the hem of a blanket, rubbing it between his fingers. Pat feels _warm_, warm where Brian is touching him, warm and cozy against the pillows, warmth blossoming inside him like a flower blooming towards the sun.

“Hey,” Brian says, at length, after Laura has left. His voice is still quiet, a little rough from sleep.

“Mm?”

“I, uh. I’m really sorry that I yelled at you, those times. By which I mean. Wow. One of those times was this morning, Jesus, it seems like that was so much longer ago.”

“Shit, yeah, it really does.” Pat considers for a moment. “Thank you,” he says. “I’m sorry for yelling at you back.”

“Hah. I think you had every right to.”

“Well, maybe, but it doesn’t feel good in either direction.”

“No, it doesn’t. I’m sorry. I really keep fucking things up, don’t I?”

Pat rubs his thumb across Brian’s shoulder, over his shirt, a half-unconscious gesture of comfort. “Don’t say that, that’s not fair. You haven’t done anything that can’t be fixed.”

Brian sighs. “I sure could have, this morning, but for you saving my ass. What would have happened if you weren’t there? If you’d been just a little later?”

Pat doesn’t know. Pat doesn’t want to think about it. “Let’s not dwell on that. Nothing happened that we couldn’t handle, and we’re safe and remain employed and hopefully you’ll start to feel better soon.”

“I already am, a little,” Brian says. He drops his head against Pat’s shoulder. “Thank you for being so nice about all this.”

“Hey, c’mon, that’s not something you have to thank me for. I care about you, and I’m here for you.”

Brian looks at Pat like he’s hung the goddamn moon. It is, Pat is startled to realize, a look he’s seen on Brian’s face a number of times before, directed straight at him. They hold eye contact for a beat too long, long enough for heat to flood through Pat in anticipation, long enough for Pat to be almost certain that they are about to kiss.

Brian is the one to look away this time. His face is flushed red; he clears his throat and shifts a little. Pat lets it be.

“You wanna turn on another movie?” Brian says.

“Sure. I don’t care what, you can choose,” Pat says, knowing perfectly well that there’s no chance that he’ll be able to pay any attention to it with Brian so close to him.

Brian, with the single-minded focus he devotes to everything, scrolls through several menus’ worth of movies before settling on one. The title sequence hasn’t even finished before the front door clatters open.

“Hey, guess who I found on the way up?” Laura says.

“It’s me,” says a deeper voice that Pat doesn’t recognize. He turns; so does Brian.

“Hey, Jonah!” Brian says cheerfully. “Jonah, this is Pat.” Pat idly observes that there has been no further context needed than his name. He wonders, maybe a little indulgently, whether Brian talks about him that much.

“Nice to meet you,” says Jonah, before disappearing out of sight into the kitchen. “I’m not bringing you your dinner, Brian, you have to get it your own damn self,” he adds, more distantly.

“But _Jonah_,” Brian whines, drawing out his name.

“Nope!”

“Laura?”

“Maybe. If I can have the beer you left in the fridge,” she says.

“That seems like a fair trade,” Brian concedes, and so the deal is made. Laura appears with two plates, delivers them to Pat and Brian, disappears and reappears again with her own.

“Mind if I join you?” she says, and plops down into an adjacent armchair without waiting for a reply. Brian rolls his eyes, but doesn’t argue; his apparent comfort being snuggled up with Pat even with witnesses seems to leach into Pat, too, who shrugs in response.

Jonah joins them shortly thereafter, sits in the other chair and hardly seems to notice or care about anything else going on in the room, more occupied with his dinner and the movie. This is fine with Pat; he’d be perfectly happy not having to chat, but of course Laura and Brian are not so subdued.

“So, Pat,” says Laura, and Pat internally groans, “where are you from?”

“Are you ghostwriting his autobiography or something?” Brian cuts in, before Pat can respond.

“Yes,” Laura says, and sticks her tongue out at her brother, before looking back at Pat expectantly.

“Maine,” he says, “I moved here like two years ago.”

Laura nods sagely. She’s all but taking notes. Pat hasn’t had a family-member interrogation in years and he’s not even dating Brian. “We’re from Baltimore. You probably knew that already,” she says.

“Brian might’ve mentioned it once or twice,” Pat says, and receives an elbow to the ribs for his trouble. He laughs. “Not that that’s a bad thing! I’m sure I talk about Maine plenty.”

“No you don’t,” says Brian. “I hardly know five things about your life before you moved here.”

“Oh my god, if you’re going to interview Pat through the whole movie, I’m leaving,” says Jonah.

“Well, bye then,” says Laura. Jonah rolls his eyes and stays put. Laura is not deterred. “You should tell us Maine stuff, Pat!”

“I can’t tell if this is some sort of demented icebreaker activity or if you’re actually going to start writing my biography.”

“Oh my god, Pat, you’re the most evasive person who’s ever lived,” Brian says.

“I don’t mean to be!” Pat says, indignant. Brian pats his shoulder sympathetically. “What d’you want to know, like, shit, I’ve got a cat? I went to UMaine?”

“I know _both_ those things,” Brian says, “_and_ they’re boring facts. Laura’s gonna think I only hang out with nerds.”

“You _do_ only hang out with nerds,” Laura says.

“See!”

“I can’t prove her wrong,” Pat says, feeling a little trapped. “All I do is physics, man, I’m not interesting.” He thinks Laura does something in the arts — Brian said she, what, said she dances? Or something? Which is the only reason that he’s possessed to say, “For real, like, my ex was an artist and he was always trying to get me to do fun creative stuff but I’m an asshole who studies all the time and has about two conversational topics in my wheelhouse,” and then he says, “shit,” and then he says, “sorry,” because he’s brought up his ex with Brian literally laying on him and if there is one fucking thing he knows is that that’s in bad taste.

“The drama, the intrigue!” Brian says, ignoring Pat’s apology. “Now you’ve got a _mysterious ex-lover_ to match your brooding look,” he says, which makes Pat snort-laugh, and Brian grins proudly to have broken Pat from his worried face.

“Very mysterious,” Pat says. “I’m sure he lives in, like, a cabin in the woods in the middle of Maine now. Gonna be a Stephen King novel if I’m not careful.”

“Oh, god, don’t drag the rest of us into it,” Jonah says, because he is apparently paying attention now too.

Laura puts on her spookiest voice. “Two physicists and two artsy types venture into the forest… what happens next will shock you!”

“That’s not a horror novel, that’s a clickbait article!” Brian says, laughing.

Pat is relieved that they’re riffing off of it instead of being uncomfortable about it, but now he’s realized that, yikes, that he’s probably going to have to tell Brian that he was engaged at some point and he can’t figure out how to work that into a joke without tipping things into irreparably awkward. Instead, he pokes Brian in the ribs, and Brian squeaks in surprise —

“Fuck you, Pat, I’m ticklish, you asshole! What do you want?”

“It’s not fair that I’m the only one being the target of interrogation,” Pat says, huffy like it actually bothers him, and Brian pouts at him.

“You already _know_ stuff about me.” He counts things off on his fingers, “Hopkins, Zuko, Moose, my brother’s got your same name —”

“Your _what_ has my _what?_ Also those are all things that you told me were too boring but _what?”_

Now all three of them are laughing at Pat. “Did you really not know? Yeah, Pat, that’s why I call you Pat Gill all the time, ‘cause if I’m just saying _Patrick_ it gets confusing, so I’m in the habit —”

“Yeah, then we gotta ask if it’s Brian’s Pat or regular Pat,” Laura chips in, and Pat recognizes the furious-indignant-_shutupshutUP_ expression Brian shoots her as one he’s given his own sister countless times.

“Regular Pat? So I’m, what, irregular Pat? Flattering,” Pat says dryly, pointedly not commenting on the _other_ thing she said, because wow, okay, and Brian’s already flustered — he’s blushing, jeez. “At least I don’t have a sister named Laura,” he adds, hoping to pull some of the attention off of Brian. Laura does laugh at that, and Brian relaxes a little — not visibly, but Pat can feel a bit of his tension leave him, because they’re so fucking close to each other.

God, what is his life right now?

The conversation peters out, as the movie gets more interesting; once it’s over, Jonah then Laura both wander off. Brian is dozing against Pat’s shoulder again. Pat never wants to move, but he knows he’s going to have to.

“Hey,” Pat says quietly, nudging him.

“Mmh?”

“I hate to ask you to move, but I really have to pee, and also we will both definitely regret it if we fall asleep here.”

“Ugh, yeah, I _guess_. Y’wanna stay? I don’t know how late it is, but I think it’s late enough for that to be prudent. I decided,” Brian says. “You can borrow my clothes, something’ll work for you to sleep in.”

Brian climbs over Pat and off the couch, then holds out a hand. Pat accepts it, and Brian yanks him to his feet much harder than Pat was expecting. He stumbles forward against Brian, who grins up at him and lets go of his hand, looking far too pleased with himself. The oldest trick in the book.

Pat is privately relieved to discover that Brian’s room is equally as disastrous as his own, if not more so, and loiters awkwardly by the doorway as Brian rifles through his dresser.

“Think fast,” says Brian, like it’s the goddamn aughts, and flings his findings at Pat. A pair of sweatpants hits Pat in the face and bounces off to land softly in his arms.

“That’s one way to do it, I guess,” Pat says, and Brian laughs.

“Go change, bathroom’s ‘round the corner, off the living room.”

Pat returns to Brian’s room, in his undershirt and Brian’s _Johns Hopkins a Capella_ sweatpants that are just a little too short on him. Brian is sprawled dramatically on his bed, spread out on his back like a starfish, his shirt hitched up a couple inches. Pat has a flash of a daydream, of climbing onto the bed and on top of Brian and smiling and laughing and kissing him, but he blinks it away quickly.

“Hey, you,” Pat says, letting the door fall closed behind him.

“Hey, yourself,” says Brian. “Ugh, I should probably go brush my teeth or whatever.”

“In theory,” Pat says.

“In practice, too,” Brian says. Pat rolls his eyes, smiling. “I’ll be back. Make yourself comfy. Don’t steal all the pillows.”

“There’s a hundred more in the living room!”

“Those are the living room pillows,” Brian insists as he brushes past Pat. “If you’re going to steal all my pillows, go fetch your own instead.”

Pat is half-tempted to spitefully build a pillow fortress around himself in Brian’s absence, but maturely abstains. He checks his phone instead, sitting down at the head of the bed, pulling the covers over his legs.

Allegra  
  
**Yesterday** 12:59 PM  
PATRICK I CANNOT BELIEVE I MISSED ALL THIS DRAMA  
IM SO GLAD YOURE OKAY AND THAT YOU WEREN’T FIRED  
I HAVE NOT DECIDED IF I WILL YELL AT YOU IRL YET  
ALSO SIMONE TOLD ME YOU LEFT WITH BRIAN ARE U GETTIN IT PLS UPDATE ASAP  
**Yesterday** 5:30 PM  
;) ??????  
**Yesterday** 7:32 PM  
I am forced to admit u are either gettin it or having very serious discussions or went home and fell asleep. I expect a full report at your earliest convenience  
**Today** 12:02 AM  
Do you have any chill  
  
NO TELL ME WHAT YOURE UP TO  
Ok ok  
  
I am at Brian’s, I am not ‘gettin it,’ he fell asleep on me within like 20 minutes of getting here and we’ve been chilling and watching movies  
  
NOT in the euphemistic sense tyvm  
  
I am spending the night though and we did like….. cuddle??  
  
YOU DID NOT OMG  
We very much did  
  
We took a nap on his couch and then his roommates came home and he didn’t even care if they saw us cuddling?? He made his sister bring us dinner on the couch so he didn’t have to move it was so obvious  
  
AWWW  
He like checked in if I was ok with it and stuff too it was good  
  
I think he’s coming back, I’m gonna sign off for the night  
  
Let me know if anything exciting happens!!!  
It won’t but thanks  
  
:rolling_eyes:  
:eggplant: :stuck_out_tongue: :winking:  


Pat sets his phone aside, facedown, as Brian walks in and closes the door and flicks the lights off. He’s sleepy-eyed, brings with him the smell of mint as he flops right back into bed and draws the covers over himself.

“Hey, Pat,” he says, the blankets not pulled high enough to hide his great big smile.

“Hey, Brian,” Pat says back, sliding down to lay facing him, unable to keep from smiling in return. Fuck, _fuck_, he wants this man so badly, and it’s taking like half his brainpower to keep his thoughts from racing at his mere proximity.

“Pat,” Brian says, again, in a different tone, a little lower, a little questioning, that sends something hot burning through his veins. “I — I know we said, weeks ago, that we weren’t in a place to do anything. And I know I wasn’t. And I’m still not sure if I am. But. I’m back, now, from whatever that was. And — and I want you to know, if you want to try — I mean, not now, necessarily, not if you don’t want to — just — whenever — I’m here. And I’m willing to talk about it and communicate and work everything out, I swear, really, I promise, I mean it, I really _really_ do.”

“Brian,” Pat says hoarsely, and he wants to say something else, something smart, something logical, but all that he says is, “Can I kiss you?”

He’s so fucking _done_ with being the one to exhibit self-control for both of them.

Brian’s eyes go wide; Pat’s eyes follow as he bites his lip. Brian nods enthusiastically and whispers, _yes_.

Pat closes the distance between them, one hand cradling the back of Brian’s head, and kisses him.

Brian’s hands clutch at Pat, insistent, but his lips are so soft and gentle against Pat’s; they are slightly chapped and Pat can smell — no, fuck, he can _taste_ — his toothpaste. One shy, sweet kiss turns into another, and another, and another, and then between one breath and the next Brian’s hands are in Pat’s hair and Pat is climbing on top of him, drawing a sharp breath as Brian anchors his leg around Pat’s and pulls him in.

He can’t get enough of him. He runs his hands down Brian’s sides, grabs him by the hips, which gets him a (so gentle) experimental tug on his hair in return, which makes Pat gasp. Brian makes a questioning noise; Pat responds with an affirmative one, and he does it again, less gently. Pat groans softly, sucks on Brian’s lip to try and pull a response from him, and boy _does_ he; Brian’s hips rock upwards just enough for Pat to stop feeling embarrassed about how fucking turned on he is already, because Brian is too.

“Brian,” Pat gasps out between kisses, “Brian, hold up, hang on, hold your horses a sec,” and Brian does, drops his head back onto the pillow and looks at Pat with wide eyes. His lips are red and his face is flushed and he is breathing hard and he is so, so fucking gorgeous. It takes Pat a long moment to scrape his thoughts together enough to get his point across. “I don’t know if I’m — if we should do more than this tonight, I don’t — I mean — fuck, truth be told, Brian, I’d go down on you right now if you wanted me to —”

Brian’s eyes, if it was even possible, go wider. Pat swears he can see his pupils dilate. He continues talking, though, doggedly refusing to be interrupted. “— except I would rather have a bigger conversation about how this, I mean, how our relationship works first, and I’m not sure either of us are really up for that talk tonight, but — yeah,” he finishes, sort of awkwardly.

“Okay,” Brian says, breathless. “That makes sense. Are we — does that, you said our relationship, does that imply —?”

“I’m hoping so,” Pat says.

“Me too,” Brian says, dreamily. “Will you kiss me more or are you done for the night?”

“Oh, fuck yeah I will,” Pat says, and has just enough time to see Brian’s smile before he kisses it right off his lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH so i actually have a significant portion of the next chapter posted elsewhere as a standalone fic ; that will probably be taken down when i post the next chapter because it seems redundant to have it twice and also the edited version is better LMAO


	8. VIII.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if the latter half of this chapter seems familiar, it's 'cause i posted it as my first fic 'awe or something like it' (which probably by the time you read this will have disappeared because i feel like it's redundant to have it twice lol)  
this version is more polished anyway dsfkjghfds

Pat wakes up thoroughly tangled with Brian. Brian’s arm is thrown over Pat’s waist, his thigh slotted between Pat’s, curled towards him, dead asleep with his mouth hanging open. It should be silly. It is the cutest goddamn thing Pat has ever seen in his life.

Pat watches through sleepy eyes as Brian stirs, waking up slowly. Before he’s so much as opened his eyes, Brian buries his face against his pillow and stretches his legs out and groans. It’s a sound definitely more out of a reluctance to be awake than anything, but also one that doesn’t do anything to curb Pat’s morning wood, which is a hell of a situation to be in.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” Pat mumbles, and Brian blinks an eye open to squint at him.

“Hey, you,” he says, and presses his hand to the small of Pat’s back, pulling him in closer. “Sleep good?”

“Someone kept me up a little late,” Pat teases, smiling just centimeters away from Brian’s lips.

“Mm-hm. I found myself in a similar situation, interestingly enough,” Brian says, looking at Pat through his eyelashes.

“Imagine that,” Pat says, and Brian kisses him once, so fucking softly.

“I hate kissing with morning breath, but you get that one ‘cause you’re special.”

“I’m honored,” Pat says. He cups Brian’s face in his hand, strokes his thumb over his cheek. Brian closes his eyes and leans into the touch.

“We should get up,” Brian says, eyes still closed. “And eat something. And I should shower. And we should probably have that conversation we put off last night.”

“That’s downright responsible of you,” Pat says. He boops Brian’s nose, and Brian blinks his eyes open and giggles at him. Pat’s heart melts.

They have the apartment to themselves for the moment, so Pat doesn’t feel self-conscious about draping his arms around Brian’s waist and being generally a nuisance as Brian scrounges up food for them, until they’re both laughing and bumping into each other on purpose. Brian turns to face Pat and steps into his space, puts his arms around Pat and hugs him so tight, like he’s wanted to do this for ages and doesn’t want to let go. Pat can’t say he feels any differently. He drops a kiss on Brian’s hair and they stand there, holding each other, until they both startle at the sound of the toaster popping and look at each other and burst out laughing again.

They flirt incorrigibly over breakfast. Pat is almost surprised at how easily he is flustered by just a smirk and a wink from Brian, but he really shouldn’t be. Pat’s never been something that anyone would refer to as “smooth,” truthfully, but he can at least wink back at Brian and be altogether too genuine about how fucking wonderful it is to be here, right now, like this.

Pat loafs on Brian’s bed as Brian showers, and then they trade places — Brian has tracked down a still-packaged toothbrush for Pat and a change of clothes — and Pat battles back the idle thought that it would be a whole lot speedier if they combined their shower time. Well, maybe someday. Maybe?

Pat flops down next to Brian, wearing Brian’s clothes, smelling like Brian’s shampoo, almost overwhelmed by the sheer presence of him. Brian smiles and takes Pat’s hand in both of his, holds it to his chest. Brian is on his back, looking at the ceiling; Pat props himself up on his side, leaning on the arm that has not been claimed by Brian.

“So,” says Pat.

“So,” says Brian.

They look at each other for a too-long, too-awkward moment, before bursting into nervous giggles for the thousandth time today.

“Why are we both like this?” Brian laments, in the direction of the light fixture on his ceiling.

“Feelings are hard,” Pat says.

“I got a feeling that’s hard for you,” Brian mutters, side-eyeing Pat.

“That doesn’t even make sense!”

Brian winks at him, lascivious as he can manage. Pat shakes his head fondly.

“Alright, alright, okay. Real feelings and being responsible time, no more bullshit. We have plenty of time for that later.”

“Hmph. I _guess_.” Brian pauses for a moment, thoughtful. “Okay, real feeling: I like you so very fucking much and I would very much like to date you and make you smile like you keep doing today, it’s so nice. I think you’re brilliant. I think you’re wonderful. I think you’re a zillion times more reasonable than I am in every respect and are the only thing that’s kept me tethered these past few weeks. Months. However long it’s been. I’m, obviously, I’m kind of in a weird place right now? I mean, I don’t feel so fucked up right now, but I was definitely _super_ out of it for a while, and might need some time to get my head right again. But, uh, you know, like, if you’re willing to take the bad with the good…?”

“Brian, please, with you it’s just good and better.”

“That is objectively untrue.”

“I like you anyway, though. I don’t care if you’ve got shit going on. Well, I do care, but, like, in the way that I care about your happiness and well-being, not in a way that’d scare me off. I forgive you for your mistakes; I want to be here for you as you get better. My biggest concern, honestly, is that if somehow things went awry, how that could affect things at work.”

“That’s a very reasonable concern,” Brian says. Is he blushing? “I think we’re both, y’know, mature and responsible adults — uh, most of the time, or at least one of us. I think we’d be able to keep it professional if worse came to worst, is what I’m trying to say. But, uh, frankly, Pat? This might come on a little strong, I guess, but I’m not — I’m not thinking about this in terms of something like — y’know — just a little fling with a hot coworker. I — if we do this, I want to make it work. I want to face problems head-on and not run away from them; I want to be the best partner I can be and communicate with you if something’s going on and not lapse and let things fall apart from inattention. I want this, Pat. I want _you_. And I want to do it right.”

Pat is caught breathless, speechless, for a long moment. He squeezes Brian’s hand; Brian squeezes back.

“Brian,” he says softly. “I couldn’t have put it better myself. That’s — I want that more than anything. I never dreamed you’d want it, too.”

“I do,” says Brian. “So much.”

Pat pulls Brian’s hands over, presses his lips to Brian’s knuckles. Brian looks at him like he is simply goddamn _charmed_.

“Well, then, I guess, if we’re on the same page —” Pat starts.

“— I think we are,” Brian interrupts, and beats Pat to the punch: “Pat Gill, do you want to be my boyfriend?”

“_Yes_,” says Pat, emphatically, not caring in the slightest that Brian has stolen his thunder.

Brian all but pounces on Pat at that and kisses him fiercely, but they’re both smiling too hard to do anything except giggle delightedly against each other’s mouths and hold each other’s faces and look at each other, so fucking happy. Pat can’t even remember the last time that he was this blindingly full of joy.

Brian is still worn out, not up to a real makeout session after all those feelings. Weeks of hardly sleeping will do that to a person. Pat fishes his laptop out of his bag to either attempt to do something productive or scroll through Twitter while Brian curls up beside him and takes a nap. Pat absentmindedly runs his fingers through Brian’s hair as he scrolls through his emails, his notes, his Twitter feed, all to equally boring ends, barely absorbing a word of it.

He gives up and puts his laptop on the floor with a sigh, and lays down beside Brian. He’s not even touching him much; he gently runs his fingers along his arm, hearing the sound of his breathing, watching him be so very alive even at rest. It feels, right now, like everything he’s ever wanted has been handed to him, and he’s cradling it in the palms of his hands (or at his fingertips, as it were), and he needs to be so fucking gentle for fear of losing it again.

Brian sighs in his sleep and shifts closer to Pat, who must be warm. He doesn’t want to wake Brian, but he wants so badly to hold him. He places his hand lightly on Brian’s waist; when he doesn’t react, he scoots in a bit closer and drapes his arm fully over him, his hand at the small of Brian’s back. This time Brian does respond to the touch, with a soft sleepy hum as he moves towards the warmth of Pat’s body.

And, well, who is Pat to object to such a perfect excuse to nap with — with his _boyfriend?_

He’s smiling, as he drifts off to sleep.

He’s woken by Brian moving around. It’s already starting to dusk, as he opens his eyes. They are going to have their sleep schedules so fucked, but he can’t find it in himself to care, because Brian is stroking Pat’s hair and whispers _hey, you_, when he sees that Pat is awake. Brian is half-sitting, still sleepy-eyed, but every time Pat looks at him he seems more present, more here, more alert and alive, and the Brian who is smiling softly down at him is so familiar and warm and kind. Pat rolls onto his side and wraps his arms around Brian’s middle, his face pressed against his hip.

“I like you,” Pat says into the fabric of his shirt. “Please keep doing that with my hair, thank you.”

Brian laughs. “I like you too, you sweet silly thing. You’re still asleep.”

“So? You’re cozy and nice and I want to stay in bed with you forever.”

“Nice as that would be, I think we should probably have dinner at some point.”

“Ugh, being a human is so annoying, you have to eat so many _times_ in a day, it’s exhausting.”

“You say that as though you’ve experienced other options.”

“Maybe I have. You don’t know that.”

“I can’t believe it. My boyfriend is an alien.” Beat. “Kinda hot.”

Pat laughs and rolls over onto his back to look up at Brian, and even when his giggle fit dies down he can’t stop _smiling_, looking at Brian, who is looking back at him so tenderly he can hardly even stand it.

“I wanna kiss you so bad,” Pat says.

“Come up here, then!”

“Nooo,” Pat whines, tugging at the hem of his shirt. “Come back down here, it’s comfy.”

“Mmm, nope! You will not trap me in this bed with your wiles and your pretty face, not today, sir!”

“Boring,” Pat huffs, and finally pushes himself into a sitting position. Brian cups his face in his hands and gives him a long, slow kiss for his trouble, licking into his mouth and pushing his hands into his hair and making him moan softly, wanting _more_ when he pulls away, leaving him breathless.

“You’re gorgeous,” Brian says softly, tracing the patch of white hairs on Pat’s chin with a fingertip. Pat forgets to be self-conscious, the way Brian looks at it. At him. “Gosh, I want you so bad. If I wasn’t so goddamn hungry I’d loiter with you for ages, except I’m starving so! Come on, Pat Gill, let us go find something to eat.”

Pat, still a little dazed, stands and follows Brian out of the bedroom. Laura is in the living room, and glances up from her phone as they cross the room. She looks them up and down, her eyes landing on their joined hands, and full-on _smirks_, an expression that makes her and Brian look impossibly even more alike. Pat raises his eyebrows at her.

“Laura, stoppit,” Brian whines, as she waggles her eyebrows in response. “Laura, you’re the worst. _Lauraaa_, you’re gonna scare off my boyfriend.”

Laura continues to look smug.

“More accurately, I think you’re going to scare off your brother, I think,” Pat says to her, and she laughs. “I’ve got an older sister, too, I’m used to it.”

“Damn,” Laura says, good-naturedly.

“Pat, c’mon, let’s go make dinner before Laura wiggles her eyebrows at us anymore,” Brian says, tugging at Pat’s arm, and Pat lets himself be led.

5:19 PM

Incoming Call

**Allegra Frank**

Accept | Decline

“Uh, I should probably take this?”

Brian waves Pat off in agreement, and Pat retreats back to Brian’s room.

“What’s going on?” Pat says, with a trace of concern.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to worry you, but you haven’t been answering my texts _all day_. To be fair, I also didn’t think you’d pick up now.”

Pat scoffs, but momentarily puts her on speaker to check his notifications. Oof. Yep, there sure are a lot of texts from her, mostly to the tune of HELLO?? PAT????

He puts his phone back to his ear with the sound settings back to normal. “Sorry, haven’t been paying much attention,” he admits.

“Uh-_huh_. You still at Brian’s?”

Pat narrows his eyes, even though she can’t see him. “I don’t like where this line of questioning is going.”

“So yes then.”

“Al-_legra_.”

She laughs. “I’m sorry to bug you, really, I was just checking in to make sure everything is okay, and you never replied so I figured I’d give calling you a shot. Also, Tara wanted me to tell you that she doesn’t need you or Brian in until next Friday, so there’s that. I think she thinks you don’t read your emails. I think she is right.”

“Thanks,” says Pat. “I appreciate your faith in me.” He dimly recalls seeing an email from Tara earlier today, but can’t remember the content at all. Oops.

“Anytime! You been up to anything fun today? I mean, apparently you have, unless you slept all day, ‘cause it’s super rude to ignore your best friend.”

“It’s also super rude to text your best friend when you know they’re busy and/or trying to catch up on sleep, you hooligan.”

“Oh, so you _have_ been busy!”

“I said ‘and/or trying to catch up on sleep,’ did you not hear me?”

“Uh-huh. Okay.”

Pat speaks quickly, when he replies. “And also yes okay I do have a boyfriend now but I haven’t asked him if he’s okay with telling anyone yet so please don’t tell anyone else or let on to him that you know until I tell you otherwise okay?”

“Pat! That’s wonderful! I’m so happy for you! Has he been sweet to you? He better be sweet to you, it’s the law, it’s what you deserve.”

Pat can’t keep the smile off his face. “He really has been. We spent most of the day napping because one of us hasn’t slept properly in like a thousand years and the other of us is chronically exhausted. It was so nice. It’s — he’s great, Allegra, he said just the nicest shit earlier when we were talking about it. I really — I’m really hopeful about this.”

“Aww, Patrick, that is so cute I am going to _keel over_. Also, you better not have a horrible breakup ever. Just sayin’.”

“Thank you for your optimism. Truly, you make me feel good about every conceivable situation.”

“I don’t need your sarcasm! I just don’t want to have to mediate, that would be so annoying.”

“I mean, you probably wouldn’t, I think it’d be more awkward for, like, Simone and Jenna, if that happened, which — hey? Hey, Allegra? Hey, Legs? Can you let us have twenty-four hours before you start predicting doom and gloom?” He’s trying not to laugh, though.

“I cannot!”

“Also, please, we’re mature and responsible adults who can handle our relationships professionally, thank you very much.”

“I know, I know. Thank goodness for that. Okay, I’ll let you go, I’m sure you’ve got cute boyfriend things to do. Tell him he’s Allegra approved, if it comes up.”

“Thank you,” he says, as earnestly as he can manage. He’d hoped she’d approve; he trusts her judgment more than nearly anyone else’s. “I’ll talk to you soon, okay? I’ll let you know when I’m home. Please do not send me eighty-seven eggplant emojis if it isn’t until tomorrow.”

“Alright. I’ll send you eighty-eight. Bye, Pat!” she says, and hangs up on his exasperated groan.

Brain and Laura are in the kitchen, talking; they stop mid-conversation when they hear Pat, which makes it pretty clear that they were talking about him. He can’t be bothered, though, because he was just doing the same thing, and also because they both look happy; Brian is blushing a little, and Laura is grinning in Pat’s direction.

“Who was that?” Brian says.

“Allegra. She was impatient with me because I wasn’t replying to her texts. We both may be a bit high-maintenance as best friends,” Pat says, with a self-effacing sort of grin.

“Did you tell her about us?” Brian asks, lightly, and Pat doesn’t know why he didn’t expect that to be the first question out of Brian’s mouth. He can’t lie to him, though.

“Yeah,” Pat confesses, “I hope that’s okay.” He’s about to launch into a guilty explanation, but Brian cuts him off before he can start.

“Of course it is! I wouldn’t ask you to keep that from her.”

Pat smiles at him, relieved; Brian looks like he’s happy just to see Pat happy.

“I did tell her not to tell anyone else,” Pat says, coming over he’s not talking across the living room at him. “I dunno how you feel about other people knowing.”

“We can figure that out, I’m sure. I don’t really — uh — know how dating coworkers works, if I’m being totally honest? My only serious relationships have been, like, really long-distance, so this is a little different,” Brian says, leaning in towards Pat like he’s going to kiss him, but doesn’t.

“Just a little,” Pat says, and taps Brian’s nose with a fingertip. “I think — don’t quote me on this — but I think Simone and Jenna have some sort of thing going on, and it seems like that’s all pretty chill. I can try and investigate a little, though, if you want.”

“Only if it’s prudent,” Brian says. “I wouldn’t want you nosing in someone else’s business on my behalf.”

“Nah, I’ll do it in my own self-interest, don’t worry.”

Laura snorts. Pat had half forgotten she was there, she’d been so quiet. “Are you going to flirt all through dinner, or will you take a break on my behalf?” she says.

“I haven’t the first idea what you’re talking about, dear sister,” Brian says, and flicks a piece of lettuce at her.

“Oh, do you really want to start this?” she says.

“If food starts flying, I am _out_,” says Pat.

“Boring,” says Brian, but abstains from sending any further projectiles Laura’s way. “We’ll be done in just a sec, anyway, you can sit, Pat.”

“Is there anything you need help with?” Pat asks, awkward, always never sure what to do in these situations.

“Yeah, go sit down, that’s what you can do to help,” Brian says, teasing a little, but his eyes are soft.

After dinner, Brian and Pat drift off to Brian’s room again.

“You probably gotta go back to your place sometime, huh?” Brian says, his hands light on Pat’s waist.

“Theoretically,” Pat says, distracted quite thoroughly by the way Brian looks up at him, and then blinks with a realization. “Shit, actually, I think my roommate’s out tonight, I have to feed Charlie.”

“Want me to walk you home?” This is punctuated by a sly smile.

“I’d be honored,” Pat says, and Brian drops a quick kiss on his lips.

“Laura shares a wall with me anyway, so, y’know,” says Brian, and the implications of that leave Pat reeling for a moment.

Brian is incorrigible on the way back to Pat’s. Though by all rights they could walk, they opt for the subway, and Brian presses himself as close to Pat as is publically appropriate. He slings his arm around Pat’s waist, finger hooked in one of Pat’s belt loops. Pat is acutely aware of every inch that they are touching. He keeps this up the whole way back. Pat fumbles — nearly drops — his keys at the door, thoroughly distracted by the way Brian leaned in close when they stopped but still isn’t kissing him but he can feel his breath against his jaw and Pat finally manages to get the door open.

Brian moves forward like he’s actually going to kiss him, once they’re inside, but is interrupted by Charles yowling his gosh dang head off like no one has fed him in _twelve thousand years_. Pat knows this isn’t true, because his roommate was there this morning and certainly fed him, so he’s definitely on schedule, but Charlie continues to wail miserably at him until he finally gets him his food. Pat strokes the top of his head and Charlie rumbles an appreciative purr.

“Take some time to be a dad,” Brian quips, as Pat stands, and then finally, finally pulls him in to kiss him. He is slow, deliberate with every movement, and Pat pushes his fingers into Brian’s hair and kisses him back, his head spinning at how fucking good it feels when Brian parts his lips, presses close against him, his thumbs pressing in at the very lowest point on Pat that could still be generously referred to as his lower back.

“Brian —”

“Mm?” He nips gently at Pat’s lower lip. Pat’s train of thought disintegrates for a moment.

“Uh. Wanna take this to my room?”

“Lead the way, baby,” Brian says, looking up at Pat through his eyelashes. Pat thinks he may actually combust. He manages not to, though, and instead grabs Brian by the hand and whisks him off down the hall.

The door to Pat’s room closes behind them and Brian steps up behind Pat, pushes his thumbs into Pat’s front pockets and his face against the back of his neck.

“Tell me, Pat Gill, do you prefer to drive, as it were? Or do you like it better the other way ‘round?”

Pat, who has abruptly lost the ability to form a coherent sentence, stutters in response. “I — damn, I — really I do like it either way. You got a preference?”

“I feel like people tend to categorize me a particular way, but honestly, I’m much the same. I’d love to take you apart just as much as I’d love for you to pound me into your mattress over there.”

Pat can’t help the involuntary twitch of his hips at that, rocking forward into nothing. This does not go unnoticed by Brian, who presses his fingers harder into Pat’s hipbones.

“God, look at you,” Brian says, and presses a kiss to the knob of Pat’s spine. “You got a feeling about what you might like your night to look like, gorgeous?”

Pat shivers, the pure unfiltered affection and desire in Brian’s voice affecting him just as much as his hands, his mouth. “I — okay, I won’t lie, like, my last relationship had a pretty set dynamic but I tend to — I mean — I haven’t had anyone top me in fucking _ages_, is what I’m trying to say, here.”

“Oh, Pat, all you gotta do is ask,” Brian breathes.

“Please?” says Pat, who can’t even find it in himself to be embarrassed by the way his voice pitches up with want, especially not when Brian moves his hand over just a bit, cupping him over his jeans, his other hand holding him still so he can’t buck his hips forward into his touch.

“Get on the bed, Pat,” Brian says softly, and Pat fucking _gets_. Something in his voice makes him half-instinctively prepared to kneel with hands behind his back, but no sooner is he on the bed when Brian is climbing all over him, pushing him down against the pillows and straddling his hips.

Brian, as it turns out, had somehow been holding back before; he presses the long line of himself against Pat so they’re touching fucking everywhere, his hands tangled in Pat’s hair. He’s brilliantly talented with his mouth, even just kissing, knowing exactly how to apply tongue and teeth to make Pat gasp into his mouth. He can’t believe he’s already this responsive after only this much, except of _course_ he is because it’s Brian and he’s absolutely head-over-heels for him and so how could he not be?

He should’ve taken off his shirt first, or something, he realizes, because _god_ he wants Brian to touch him, but they’re apparently on the same wavelength on that front because Brian runs a hand over Pat’s side and slides just the fingertip of his index finger under Pat’s shirt and makes a questioning sound.

“Yeah, go for it,” Pat breathes, and Brian pushes Pat’s shirt halfway up his torso to eagerly, enthusiastically get his hands on him. He kisses along Pat’s jaw, unbothered by his stubble, which he’s probably avoided shaving for long enough that it’s soft and not really prickly now anyway, and grazes his teeth down the side of Pat’s neck. Pat draws a shivery gasp at that, and Brian hums appreciatively.

“Pat, baby, I need you to tell me what you want so we’re on the same page.”

Pat closes his eyes, feeling a blush bloom across his face. “Fuck, Brian, I dunno, I can’t think of a single thing you could do right now that I wouldn’t absolutely fucking joyously take.”

“Jesus, Patrick,” Brian says softly, with awe or something like it. “That sure is a thing to say. Jeez. We can — we can explore more about that another time, but — really I meant — do you want me to fuck you, or suck you off, or do you not want to have sex at all, or — I just need a direction, baby, that’s all, I’ll take such good care of you, okay?”

Pat exhales slowly, trying to think through the fog of arousal that is currently his baseline, and finally manages, “I — shit, sorry, you’re distracting as hell — god, I don’t think I have condoms or anything, I haven’t hooked up with anyone in so long, and I don’t know if I want to get fucked without one — I dunno how you feel about giving head that way but I’d be good with that if you were — or, fuck, you could just use your hands, or, whatever, I’m rambling, please save me from myself —”

Brian kisses him, once, lightly, and smiles. “I think I can manage that.” He fucking _winks_ at Pat, and adds, as though it is the most casual thing in the world, “I’ve been dying to get your cock in my mouth, anyway.”

Pat stares at him, mouth hanging open. Brian looks incredibly fucking pleased with himself.

“Shirt off, if you don’t mind, baby?” Brian says, sitting back on Pat’s legs to peel off his own shirt. Brian’s in Pat’s way, but he manages to wriggle out of his shirt anyway, and he’s met with a sweet genuine smile. “Gosh, you’re lovely. How do you feel about bruises?”

“Very very good,” says Pat, who is definitely not squirming a bit under Brian to try and get some sort of friction where he desperately wants it. “Prob’ly not visible ones, but I guess we don’t gotta face anyone at work ‘till Friday, so, y’know. Hm. Probably not, still, not on me, anyway.”

“You can give me a big ol’ hickey on my neck, if you want. I’m so sensitive, right here —” Brian takes Pat’s hand, lays Pat’s fingertips just below his Adam’s apple. “— always wanted to see what that’d feel like.”

“Shit, yeah, okay,” says Pat, “come here, then.”

Brian drops back over Pat, who can’t help but sigh at the feel of skin on skin. Brian’s not as bony as Pat, with some softness to his belly and strong steady arms, and it feels wonderful to be touching him like this. Pat presses kisses to his cheeks, his chin, his smiling lips, his neck, and then goes fully zero to sixty and grabs a handful of Brian’s hair and gets his mouth on his throat. Brian moans — fuck, he can _feel_ the vibrations of it — and rocks his hips down against Pat’s as Pat sucks a bruise into his skin. Pat pulls away to admire his work, flushed red already blooming where his mouth was, and Brian makes a sound that’s halfway to a growl and drags Pat in to crash their lips together, hungry and frantic.

“You’re fucking perfect, Patrick, how do you do it?” Brian says, breathless, and Pat just kisses him again in reply, not knowing how else to answer. This seems to be acceptable enough; Brian crowds himself against Pat and lightly drags blunt fingernails down Pat’s front. He pulls away to kiss Pat’s jaw, down his neck, to find distraction at his chest.

Pat can’t decide if he’s more impatient or fucking _grateful_ when Brian’s red lips part and his tongue comes out to tease at his nipple; a flash of white teeth against Pat’s skin foreshadows a bright spark of pain but the _good_ kind, the kind that makes Pat moan and writhe under Brian as Brian holds his hips down and takes his sweet time sucking bruises into his chest and getting Pat to outright whimper at him. Pat has one hand twisted into Brian’s hair for something to hang on to, the other trying to touch him, somewhere, anywhere, restlessly tracing along his spine and ribs and wherever else he can get to.

After what feels like a gratuitous eternity, Brian dips his head lower, pressing kisses in a slow line down his sternum, his stomach, noses at the line of dark hair leading to the button of his jeans.

“May I?” says Brian, his hands pausing just above him.

“Please,” Pat says roughly. He’s so goddamn turned on that the pressure of Brian’s careful hands undoing his fly makes his back arch, seeking more.

“Patience, Patrick, I got you, I’m not going anywhere, okay? Gonna make you feel so good, baby, you’ll see,” Brian says, and as he talks he shucks Pat’s pants off him; there is a pause and a questioning eyebrow raise, to which Pat nods enthusiastically, and Brian gets his boxers off of him too.

Brian sits back and runs his eyes over Pat, who is unable to hold still, his face flushed red probably all the way down to his chest, his chest where Brian has left bruises he bets will last for days. It feels like his awareness is concentrated in all the parts of him that ache for Brian; where his hands have been and will be seem like they are the most important in the world. All he wants is for Brian to touch him more, fuck, but instead Brian moves off of him to gracelessly take off the rest of his own clothes. Pat can’t help but laugh, pure joy, as he holds his arms out for Brian, and Brian laughs too and goes to him and steals a kiss.

“Hey, sweetheart,” says Brian. “You doing okay?”

“Yeah, god, yes, I might die if you don’t touch me more like right now though?”

“Well, we can’t have that, can we?” says Brian. He continues to take his sweet time, though: he appraises Pat again and stretches his arms over his head, showing off so Pat can see every perfect line of his body, the muscles of his arms and chest and thighs, the implication of abs and the light brush of hair on his chest and down his stomach and leading in a denser trail to his cock. The mark on his throat has already darkened into a bruise; Pat wants to leave matching ones on his thighs.

He finally, _finally_ leans over Pat again and experimentally drags a fingertip along Pat’s cock, and Pat draws a sharp, shuddering breath.

“You good, baby?” Brian asks, pausing.

“Yes, _yes_, please don’t stop,” Pat says quickly, and Brian grins. He dips his head and mimics what he just did but with his tongue now, hot and wet and soft and _divine_ and Pat grabs at his own hair and whines.

“Fuck, Pat,” Brian says softly, and Pat opens his eyes to look at him just in time to watch him take the head of Pat’s cock into his mouth. Pat presses his knuckles against his mouth to muffle the ragged, desperate sound that wrenches its way out of him. Brian’s eyes flicker up to Pat’s face, and though his mouth is occupied, his eyes telegraph a wicked smile as he wraps his fingers around him.

Pat can hardly keep up, can hardly put words to what the sensations are, between Brian’s hands and his mouth, seeking out what makes Pat react, what makes his hips jolt up off the bed, what drags a half-sobbed moan out of him, what brings a string of _yes yes yes please yes oh god Brian please_ from his lips, what drives him past words into helpless desperate sounds and then to nothing at all, his eyes squeezed shut and his mouth open as if to cry out but forgetting how to so much as breathe as brilliant melting heat courses through his fucking _bones_ as he comes and Brian stays right there, works him through it until he goes boneless, panting, overwhelmed grateful exhausted and so fucking happy.

He blinks up at Brian, who grins back and drags the back of his hand across his mouth, very pleased with himself. He’s breathing hard, too; Pat’s eyes are drawn to the movement of his other hand away from his crotch.

“Oh — Brian, I would’ve done that for you,” he says.

Brian gives a sheepish smile and climbs off of Pat’s legs. “I, uh, couldn’t wait,” he confesses, and settles down to lay on his side next to Pat. Pat pulls him in, holds him close, and Brian looks at him. He looks a little nervous now, a little hopeful. “Was that good?”

“Christ, Brian, that was perfect,” Pat says, and kisses him lightly on the forehead.

“Oh, good,” says Brian. “It was for me, too. God, you’re so pretty when you’re desperate like that, I wish you could’ve seen yourself. You’re fucking gorgeous, Pat Gill, I cannot even handle it.”

“Shit, Brian,” Pat says, “you’re going to be the death of me.”

Brian kisses him, once, lightly. “Only la petite mort, I should hope.”

“Pretentious asshole,” Pat says, affectionately.

“Yeah, well, you signed up for this.”

“So help me, I did,” he sighs, quite happily. “I’m so fucking glad of it, too.”

“Good! Good. So am I.” Brian pushes himself up to one elbow. “Not to kill the mood or anything, but I’d kind of like to clean myself up a little bit. Maybe shower? Can I shower? You’re more than welcome to join, if you’d like.” That mischievous smile again.

“I’d be honored, though I hope you’re not expecting a round two out of me for a hot minute. I’m not twenty-four anymore,” he adds, teasing.

“I believe in you,” Brian says, which is the most ridiculous possible response, and Pat bursts out laughing. Brian plays it straight for long enough to add, “If not, I’m sure we can come to a compromise.”

When they’re done giggling, they disentangle themselves but for their hands, still held, and go from the room together.

Allegra  
  
Oh btw I got home a couple hours ago so no need to send me suggestive emojis  
  
I will only abstain because I don’t feel like counting out 88 of them  
  
Have a good night u nerd ;)  
  
Sleep well you dork :p  
  



	9. ix°.

The next day, they drop by Brian’s so he can pick up his work things, because they do actually need to do real work at some point. They shed their coats and outerwear as soon as they’re through the door; Brian unwinds his scarf and Jonah takes one look at him and the vicious hickey on his neck that he has made absolutely zero effort to conceal, and bursts out laughing.

“Damn, you two,” he says, and Pat feels his face heat up.

“Shut up, Jonah,” Brian says, without malice.

“I wasn’t totally sure if that’s where you ended up yesterday,” Jonah says. “Laura went out with some friends, but I didn’t think you were with her, under the circumstances.” He raises his eyebrows suggestively.

“You and her are both equally the worst!”

“Yeah, well, at least I don’t share a wall with your bedroom,” Jonah says cheerfully.

“Ugh, don’t _remind_ me,” Brian sighs. “Also, you are embarrassing Pat.”

“Sorry, Pat.”

“It’s alright, I’m sure we’ll be getting it from all angles for a little bit. Speaking of, we should see if Allegra wants to hang out before Friday so she can embarrass us off the clock,” Pat says.

“Get her in here for some _MarioKart_, Brian wouldn’t shut up about how he wanted you to come over and play with us, you can get two birds with one stone,” Jonah says.

“Ooh, yes!” Brian says. “Thanks, Jo, you’re a genius. Okay. I need to get my things, and then we can do something about lunch and maybe actually get something accomplished?” Brian says, finishing his statement in Pat’s direction.

This is the fashion in which they spend most of their week. They sprawl out on one of their beds or in one of their living rooms or slouch at a kitchen table to write until they can’t anymore — whether due to running out of steam for the day or becoming too distracted. They find pretty quickly that they are (mostly) able to set hitting on each other aside and get strictly to work; it’s only when they really need to take a break that hands start wandering or amicable teasing turns suggestive.

DO YOU EVEN DRIFT  
  
Brian David Gilbert _added Simone de Rochefort, Allegra Frank, Patrick Gill to group._  
Brian David Gilbert _changed group name to DO YOU EVEN DRIFT._  
Simone  
????  
Brian  
I HAVE… AN ANNOUNCEMENT  
actually 2 announcements  
announcement 1: pat & i are dating  
Simone  
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  
Brian  
announcement 2: i am hosting a mariokart adventure at my house home on friday night and you are all contractually obligated to come by virtue of being my friends  
Gosh I’m not sure I can make it  
Brian  
stop texting me from right next to me i can see you giggling at your own joke  
Allegra  
Simone this is our lives now  
Simone we are going to have to deal w them being gross and cute and flirty ALL OF THE TIME NOW  
Simone  
Idk I’m here for it  
;)  
Don’t you wink at me like that  
Simone  
I will wink at you exactly as much as I like thank you  
Brian  
do you wink at us sir? no sir i do not wink at you sir but i do wink  
Simone  
Brian can I bring Jenna?  
Omg  
;)?  
Simone  
SHUT UP  
Brian  
do you quarrel sir? quarrel sir no sir  
Allegra  
Quit it with the shakespeare!!!  
Brian  
lol ofc simone! we already had more ppl than controllers so might as well embrace it  
i SHAN’T quit it with the shakespeare but i will put it on hold  
Allegra  
:rolling_eyes:  
Wait am i missing something what was with the winking from pat  
Simone  
Jenna and I are… sort of a thing no romo  
Very chill qpr  
Allegra  
OH CUTE  
EVERYONE HERE NEEDS TO STOP BEING SO CUTE!!!!!!!  
Brian David Gilbert _added Jenna Stoeber to DO YOU EVEN DRIFT._  
Jenna  
i see simone has revealed all our dark secrets  
jk jk shes perfectly allowed to!!! i do not want any misconceptions  
also congrats pat and brian thats really cute! im happy for u took y’all long enough  
Brian  
sometimes you have to wait until ur not a hot mess to date ur crush  
i may still be a hot mess but im LESS OF A MESS i remain hot tho pat agrees  
You’re putting words in my mouth  
But yeah  
Simone  
THE FLIRTING………  
Brian  
shut  
Allegra  
Didn’t you say you were right next to each other?? Why are you text flirting instead of irl flirting  
Brian  
we’re millennials, allegra, we gotta  
Jenna  
confirmed  
Allegra  
I cant believe everyones gonna have someone to be cute w at Brian’s mariokartparty and no one will be there 2 LOVE ME.....  
Brian  
theres zuko  
and my sister  
Allegra  
……isnt zuko your cat  
He’s very handsome though  
Allegra  
You are BOTH the worst  
Someday I will have the hottest and best bf and you will all be sorry u ever teased me!!!  
That’s true, you’re wonderful and I will be appropriately sorry when that day arrives  
This is not sarcasm I mean it sincerely  
Allegra  
Good. U better be  
Aw thanks pat ♥  
♥  
Simone  
♥  
Jenna  
♥  
Brian  
♥  
ok so my apt 7pm friday be there or automatically forfeit your mariokart tournament placement  
also if any1 wants to bring a snack or a refreshment that would be nice since there will be all of us + my 2 roommates + maybe jonah’s partner there  
Simone  
You got it!!! See you friday!! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:  


It’s almost disarmingly simple to fall into a routine with Brian. Natural, even. Whoever’s apartment they wake up at, they go through their morning routines in tandem, with little fuss. It is, in point of fact, mostly a time-saver to shower together, unless they get distracted and Laura pounds on the door and yells at them to _hurry the fuck up, lovebirds, I have to pee_, at which point they scramble.

They complement each other, in ways Pat didn’t expect. Brian’s a sleep-cuddler, which Pat definitely did expect; he’s warm but not to the point of overheating, and when he’s curled around him Pat’s anxiety dreams seem to chill out a little. They have a similar rhythm to their daily routines, and even as their sleeping patterns even out somewhat, they’re usually not far apart on what times they want to be awake. Like, yeah, Pat could stay in bed ‘till three in the afternoon, but it’s better when he gets up in the actual A.M. and spends his daylight hours with Brian.

Even more esoteric and mundane things, like how they take their coffee and the types of mint toothpaste they can’t fucking stand and their sense of around-the-house fashion and their course through the grocery store, are things that they hardly have to think about. They fall so easily into it that it feels like it should’ve been this way all along. Of course Brian’s got a toothbrush in Pat’s bathroom, of course Brian’s refolded all his clothes so Pat can store stuff in his dresser. Of course.

It would, maybe, be jarring if it wasn’t so _nice_, so desperately welcome, the way they’re practically living back-and-forth at each other’s apartments within days of getting together. The deep-set ache in Pat’s chest is tempered by the presence of another person who is willing to give him as much attention as he spends on them. He pours affection onto Brian and gets it back in kind, just as eagerly. Maybe it’s because it’s new, or maybe Brian’s just like this, or maybe Pat’s just like this, but he can’t deny it feels wonderful to not be the clingy one for once, because they both are. Brian is in an even more literal sense: Brian is nearly always touching Pat in some way, if he can be; they almost constantly have a point of contact between them, even if they’re just sitting shoulder-to-shoulder as they work.

Pat wonders how starved for touch Brian must have been, before all this, or if maybe he just senses how desperately hungry for contact that Pat is.

They work hard, of course they do, because they’re both scientists at heart and on top of that they don’t want to disappoint Tara, so they do what’s required of them and then some. A lot of writing, is what it boils down to — and if they sometimes spend a bit more time fucking around and interrupting each other’s sentences in Google Docs than is strictly necessary, who’s to say, but it’s so fun to make Brian giggle.

And after they put their hours in. Well.

Brian lays down directly on top of Pat the moment he’s set his laptop aside. He drums his fingers against Pat’s collarbone, over his shirt.

“Hey, baby,” Brian says, and kisses Pat’s chin. “How’s it going?”

“Mm. Good,” Pat says resting his hands on the small of Brian’s back. “Better now.”

“Yeah?” A kiss to Pat’s jaw. A teasing grin. “What, you like it when I’m on top of you?”

Pat laughs. “C’mon, you already know that,” Pat says, poking him in the ribs to make him squeak. Brian breaks into giggles and kisses him again, pushes himself up a little bit to showily roll his hips against Pat’s. He rucks Pat’s shirt up, runs his fingers over the slats of Pat’s ribs, kisses the corner of his mouth.

It’s like this all the _time_, with him. It might very well be one of the best things that’s ever happened to Pat.

“Pat, I will have you know that it’s been all the way since Saturday, and if you look close enough you can still kinda see a mark on my neck,” Brian says, on their way to the office.

“Let me see,” says Pat, and Brian pulls his collar aside for Pat to inspect his throat. “Eh, it can pass as a shadow. You’d have to look real hard if you were gonna call it for what it is, and I doubt anyone’s going to be inspecting your neck.”

“You never know! Maybe they’ll have to do a vampire check,” Brian says, and Pat raises his eyebrows. Brian holds his earnest-serious expression until he makes claws out of his hands and bares his teeth at Pat and they both dissolve into laughter.

Pat wraps both his hands around the strap of his bag to keep himself from holding Brian’s hand on the way in. He shoulders the door open for Brian, who smiles graciously and winks as he passes by.

Simone and Chelsea are chatting just inside the door; Simone’s face lights up when she sees them, and Chelsea turns to see what has made her so happy.

“Oh, hi guys!” Chelsea says. “I’m glad to see you, it’s been weird without you around.”

“It’s hard work being the sole agent of chaos,” Simone agrees, putting a hand to her heart with all the drama she can muster.

“I would love to wreak havoc with you right this minute, but we have to go meet with Tara and I super do not want to be late,” Brian says. Simone and Chelsea wave them off, amused, and they continue on their travels.

Tara looks genuinely pleased to see them, which should probably surprise Pat less than it does. She smiles at them and gestures for them to sit and says, “Hey, you two. How are you doing?”

“I’m alright,” Pat says, at the same time as Brian says, “I’m okay.” They exchange an amused look.

“You look much better than you did, Brian, if you don’t mind my saying so,” Tara says.

“I feel a lot better. More present, I guess, would be how I’d put it. It doesn’t hurt that I’ve been, uh, actually sleeping and eating regularly, too,” Brian says, a little sheepishly.

“Good. I’m glad to hear it,” Tara says. With that out of the way, she switches gears and pulls up the file of the report that Pat and Brian have shared with her. “I’ve been keeping up with your progress, and I have to say, it’s looking very good. Brian, I’ve got the notes I borrowed from you last week. You can take those back with you today. But! I have better news than just complimenting you on a half-written first draft.”

“Oh?” says Brian. Pat’s interest is piqued, too. Tara switches windows to an email.

“I heard back yesterday from the _Mesa Times_ about the first report that you submitted. They’re super interested in it, and would like to print it in a future issue. They’re also interested in more, if you have it, so that’s a good incentive to get this report together, I think. They’re not expecting more too soon, of course, that would be unreasonable; they understand this takes time, but they definitely do want to publish you.”

“Oh my god,” Brian says.

Pat is too stunned to speak for a moment; he finally manages, “That’s amazing.”

“It is! I’m proud of both of you. I gave them your information, so I’d expect to hear back from the editor soon,” Tara says. “Speaking of writing, though, have either of you had any insight on whatever it was that happened to Brian, assuming the leading hypothesis is still that it’s related to exposure to the samples?”

“Nothing substantial, unfortunately,” Brian says. “If I’m being totally honest, my memories of most of it are pretty unclear. I’m hoping the notes I took will shed some light on the subject.”

“They’re pretty interesting,” Tara says, “if challenging to interpret in parts. I think it will probably be useful, either way — at the very least for Pat, since you didn’t experience most of it firsthand.” She hands the notebook over; Brian takes it, and slides it into Pat’s bag. Pat watches him; when he glances back at Tara, she raises her eyebrows. “Any other updates I should be aware of?”

Pat and Brian exchange what is likely the most suspect eye contact known to humankind.

“Okay, wow, either you two are plotting a crime or you’ve started dating, and either way you’re not sneaky.”

“Well, you’re right about at least one of those,” Pat says, with a guilty smile.

“Took you long enough,” she says, fondly, boss-Tara dropping away for a moment to laughing-with-friends-after-work-Tara, and a weight feels like it’s been lifted from Pat’s chest. “Really, though, I’m happy for you. Plus, if that’s got anything to do with why Brian doesn’t look half-dead, I’m on board. You know how it goes, I’m sure, just be professional at work. I trust both of you to behave yourselves.” She pauses, amends: “Usually.”

Pat laughs; Brian smiles, looking a little embarrassed. “Thanks, Tara,” Brian says softly, like he wasn’t sure if she’d be mad.

She waves off his thanks. “Don’t worry about it,” she says, and he seems to relax a little. “Any actual science- or work-related updates?”

“Just the report, really. I’m glad you like how it’s shaping up. Hopefully Brian’s notes will help us bring it all together,” Pat says.

“You’ve got a knack for it, I think. You work well together. I’m not upset by the idea of you continuing to do work remotely while you write this; I know it can sometimes be easier to write in your own space on your own schedule. I mean, that’s why we hardly ever see the McElroys or Russ,” she adds, with a half-smile. It’s true: Pat can count the number of times he’s seen the brothers in person on one hand; they and Russ do most of the actual writing that comes out of Polygon’s research, but they’ve been focused on a separate project from Pat and Brian’s.

“If you’re feeling isolated, though, by all means you can work in the office as well. Like I’ve said, as long as you’re putting in your required hours, getting work done at the pace you should be, and keeping me in the loop, I’m happy. And you’ve done exactly that so far, so I’m willing to let you keep doing what you’re doing as long as it continues to be effective.”

“Gosh, wow, thank you, Tara,” Brian says.

“Of course. My thoughts on the matter are that if you don’t need to be here for a specific reason, why force it if you can work as or more effectively from home?”

“Remember when Simone was working on that giant report ages ago and practically turned herself nocturnal because she writes better at night?” Pat says.

Tara laughs. “Yeah, don’t do that. That’s a bad plan.”

“Noted,” Pat says. “If we start doing that, get someone to drag us back into office hours. I mean, who knows, we might hop back into the computer lab on Monday—”

“No you won’t,” Tara says, and Brian snorts.

“Yeah, okay, whatever. It’s nice to see everyone, though. I won’t lie, it’s weird being away,” Pat says.

“So what you’re saying is, you won’t be as much of cryptids as Justin and Griffin, just sort of cryptids like Russ.”

“Exactly,” Pat says. “I’m sure certain individuals will have something to say about it if they think I’m isolating myself too much. By which I mostly mean Allegra, obviously.”

“Hah, if nothing else, y’all really do have each other’s backs, and I appreciate that about you. I’m glad to see that this team works so well together,” says Tara. “Makes me glad I took a chance on all you upstarts.” She smiles at both of them — well, maybe probably mostly at Brian, because she’s not even that much older than Pat. He forgets that, sometimes, because she’s so much more put-together than he feels most of the time.

They finish discussing the things that they need to discuss and leave Tara’s office. As they retrace their steps through the building, they come across an impromptu meeting of most of the usual suspects, taking up a conference room but quite clearly watching a video that has nothing to do with work, judging by the meows coming out of Jenna’s computer.

“Does anyone here actually do work anymore?” Brian says, sticking his head into the room. All eyes turn to him, and by extension Pat, who is standing a half-step behind him.

“Oh, you’re here!” Jenna chirps. “I’m so glad, I missed you guys!”

“We’ve been given permission to become cryptids _a la_ Russ until we finish this report,” Brian says, stepping fully inside, making space for Pat to lean against the doorframe.

“Dang, you get to sleep in, then? That’s no fair,” Jeff says.

“I mean, you could sleep in too, you’d just have to stay later,” Brian points out. “It’s not like we’re skipping out on hours just ‘cause we’re not here.”

“I think we’re working more, actually,” Pat says, affecting a grouch.

“I believe it,” Simone says. “Some people don’t know how to stop when they’re on a roll.”

“At least these particular people aren’t staying up all night to write,” Pat says.

“Will anyone ever let that go!” Simone says, indignant.

“Nope,” Pat says, popping the _p_.

“Terrible, all of you,” Allegra says. “Also, for your information, we ordered one of those really big subs for lunch and we are waiting for it to get here, on account of it’s lunchtime. You aren’t invited because you didn’t help pay, and because I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“Oh, okay, bye,” Pat says, and makes as if to leave.

“Shut up, she’s only joking!” says Simone.

“No I’m not!”

“I’ll share, because I’m not mean,” Jenna says. “Actually, wait, maybe it would be more fun to throw them crumbs and make them try to catch them as entertainment.”

“This is bullying. I am pretty sure that this is bullying. Pat, is this bullying?” Brian says.

“Yes. I’m going to HR as we speak,” says Pat, unmoving.

“Will you two come sit down already?” Chelsea says, finally putting an end to the bit, and Pat and Brian take two empty chairs between Clayton and Jeff. “We did account for you, actually, we hoped you’d be there.”

“Thanks, Chelsea,” Brian says. “It’s nice to know someone cares about us and won’t heckle us out of the room so they can eat our sandwiches.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Clayton says, and Chelsea makes an appropriately devious face.

“Did we miss anything else fun this week?” Pat says, in a very graceful subject change, hoping to turn the focus away from himself and Brian for at least a moment.

“Depends on your definition of ‘fun,’” Jeff says. “Because to an outsider, the most exciting thing that happened is probably when I tripped and all the papers I was holding went flying and everyone laughed at me, but, like, really it’s that I figured out how to make a diagram of —”

“Oh my god, Jeff, we are not talking about your diagrams again,” Simone groans, covering her face with her hands.

“Either of you been up to anything interesting?” Chelsea says, in a devoted attempt to divert the conversation from what would probably otherwise turn into friendly squabbling. Pat can physically feel himself blushing, despite himself.

“A lot of writing,” Pat hedges awkwardly, not looking at Brian. It does not help his poker face that Allegra, across the table, has a hand over her mouth in a fruitless attempt to keep from snickering at him.

Brian laughs. “Yeah, you could say that,” he says, and smirks over at Pat, who thinks he would like to crawl under the table now, actually, and live there forever.

“Oh?” says Jeff. Pat pushes his glasses up to his forehead to pinch the bridge of his nose, cover his eyes with his hand.

“Shut up,” Pat says, and Brian lightly bumps him with his shoulder.

“Wow, you didn’t last five minutes keeping that quiet,” Simone says.

“Well, Tara already knows, and apparently Pat can’t keep a secret from his friends, so, y’know, might as well be gay upfront instead of letting gossip sneak around,” says Brian. Pat peeks out at him from between his fingers; he is smiling, and his easy confidence is reassuring enough for Pat to pull his hand away from his face, although he’s still uncomfortable with everyone looking at him.

“Cute,” says Chelsea. “I especially appreciate how you went to such lengths to make Pat blush in front of half your coworkers.”

“All in a day’s work,” Brian sighs, dreamily.

“You’re the worst,” Pat says.

And then the conversation moves on again, and no one bats another eyelash about it. No one raises an eyebrow and says anything like _wow Pat I didn’t know you were gay_ in that weird way some people say it and he wonders if maybe he was less covert about it than he thought. Or maybe it just doesn’t actually matter to anyone here. Logically, like, of course it’s the latter, Simone and Jenna and Brian have all been unsubtly and openly bi for ages and no one’s ever been weird about it and Pat doesn’t know why he was so worried but it’s, like, it’s actually okay.

They opt to stay for lunch, and then opt to stay after lunch and set up in the computer lab. It’s more populated than usual, since the research lab is still fully closed, and in an unspoken agreement everyone congregates at computers near each other. Simone and Jenna claim the computer to Pat and Brian’s left; Allegra and Chelsea are at their right; Jeff and Clayton are on the opposite side of the table. Even Karen and Petrana join the party, not wanting to be isolated on the other side of the room.

“Allegra, why did you message me when you’re sitting on the other side of the table?” Clayton says with a sigh.

“It’s a group chat? Hello?”

Pat glances at his Slack notifications. Allegra has sent a ;) to everyone in the room, and then some.

:3  
  
that was brian i am not partaking in this nonsense -pat  
  


Pat elbows Brian away from the keyboard and switches back to the window with their actual work. Brian pouts at him.

“You are no fun, Pat Gill.”

“And yet, you’re stuck with me. Will you help me write this goddamn report?”

Brian  
mwahahaha i have hacked the system and have logged in ON MY PHONE  


Pat gives Brian a flat look. “So that’d be a no, then?”

Brian is barely restraining his giggles; behind him, so is Allegra.

Clayton  
You do realize Tara is in this group chat and can see all of you procrastinating, right  
Tara  
:eyes:  
I see encouraging you to have a team bonding lunch has not in fact done wonders for your productivity  
Jeff  
you probably could’ve anticipated that to be fair  
Tara  
Don’t make me come out there and supervise yall personally  
Jenna  
don’t worry tara, pat is making a real grouchy face at all of us i think we are duly supervised  
Tara  
Oh good. Keep up the good work, Patrick.  
Brian  
Sent file: patisagrump.png  
I did NOT TELL YOU YOU COULD SEND THAT  
  
Allegra  
Sent file: GRUMPIERPAT.png  
Tara  
Will you all stop blowing up my notifications for one second!  
Nice pics though really gets the mood across. The blur effect is a nice touch  
You’re all blocked none of you are free of sin  
  
Allegra  
Stop memeing and go back to wooooork!!!!!  
……………………………… >:[  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i didn't have fancy coding for slack so.......... shrug emojio


	10. X.

There is not, on the whole, a lot accomplished for the rest of the day. It’s Friday, and everyone’s in a good mood for once, without deadlines snapping at their heels. Tara joins them in the computer lab by midafternoon, under the guise of supervision, but Pat’s fairly certain she really just wanted to be where the fun is.

Collectively, as a group, they concede defeat and leave on time; Tara and a handful of the others are meeting up with Russ for dinner or drinks or something, so Pat doesn’t feel too weird when they head off in the other direction with Simone, Allegra, and Jenna in tow. Brian waits what he apparently deems the appropriate amount of time (exactly thirty seconds from departure) to reach for Pat’s hand and affectionately bump shoulders with him.

“You two are too goddamn cute!” Simone says from behind them. Brian turns to shoot her a dazzling grin. Pat glances at her over his shoulder, too; she’s cheerfully holding Jenna’s hand, as Jenna holds out her other arm for Allegra to hook her arm through.

“Thank you for loving me when no one else will,” Allegra says through pretend tears.

“Don’t worry, Allegra, I know Zuko’s gonna be ready for cuddles. Well, if he doesn’t hide under the couch from everyone, anyway,” says Brian.

“Hah! That would be just my luck.”

Brian bursts through the door to their apartment ahead of the rest of them, and shouts, “Laura, we’re home!”

“Yes, I had a feeling,” says Laura, who is not four feet away from the door, without looking up.

“Everyone, this is my sister Laura. Laura, this is Allegra and Simone and Jenna.”

“You look so much alike, oh my god,” says Simone, as a greeting.

“We get that a lot,” says Laura, amused. “Especially when Brian’s hair gets long, jeez, people will stop us when we’re minding our own business and be like, oh, are you twins? Like no, Brian’s a baby, please.”

“Whatever. I’m the pretty one,” says Brian, brushing past her with a toss of his hair to usher everyone into the living room.

“Like hell you are!” Laura says after him, and Brian cackles. “Someone needs to go to the store, by the way. Jonah’s getting pizza on his way home, but we do not have paper plates and I am not washing this many dishes no matter how much it’s my turn this week.”

“I can go,” says Pat, who is closest to Laura and a terminal people-pleaser.

“No, I was trying to guilt Brian into going, but then I realized that I shouldn’t make him leave all his friends here with me. I’ll go, it’s just down the block anyway. Anyone need-slash-want anything in particular?”

“Oh! Brian told us to bring stuff, so I did,” Allegra says suddenly, shrugging her backpack off and somehow producing a big ol’ bag of chips from it like it’s the bag from _Mary_ goddamn _Poppins_. Laura holds her hands out and Allegra throws the bag at her. Laura catches it, and receives a cheer from the audience. She laughs, and bows with drama.

“Ah, shoot, we were gonna get drinks on the way, but we ended up coming straight from work. I can come with, Laura?” says Jenna.

“Nah, you’re fine, I was already going to pick up something fun. You guys chill, okay? I’ll be back in a little bit, need to find my jacket — oh, there it is, duh. Okay, I’ll be back! If Jonah forgot his keys again, don’t leave him locked out. He’s got food.”

“Noted,” says Brian, and Laura takes her leave.

Pat, no longer distracted by the party setup negotiations, takes the opportunity to look around. The living room has been de-blanketed significantly since he was here last, so that there is now space for people to sit, and a couple chairs have been relocated from the kitchen. Brian plops down on the couch and waves Pat over; he goes willingly, and sits down next to him. Allegra joins them at the other end of the couch, and pulls her feet up onto the cushion so she can poke Pat with her toes. Pat makes a face at her. Simone and Jenna bicker over the armchair, until Jenna nudges Simone into it and pulls the kitchen chair next to it real close, so she can lean on the armrest and put her chin on Simone’s shoulder.

The very moment everyone finally gets themselves situated, someone bangs on the door. Brian heaves a long-suffering sigh.

“When will he ever learn,” he says, and goes to get the door for Jonah.

“Sorry,” is Jonah’s sheepish greeting. “Forgot my keys.”

“We’re gonna have to attach them to you somehow, jeez,” Brian says, holding the door open for him. “Maybe pierce your ears and hang them off them? Could get you some big hoops, real fancy.”

Jonah plunks the pizza boxes down on the table in a rebuttal of Brian’s teasing. “You’re welcome,” he says. Brian grins at him.

“Laura’s getting plates and drinks, she’ll be back soon, probably.”

“So we can start gaming without her, then,” says Jonah, abandoning Brian for the living room. “Hi, y’all,” he adds as a cursory greeting in the general direction of everyone else, as he makes a beeline for the TV.

“Jonah, you’re so unfriendly!” Brian pouts, leaning over Jonah to grab the controllers. He tosses one to Pat, who misses wildly, and it bounces off his chest. Allegra snorts. “No one’s going to believe any of the fun stories I told about my cool roommate Jonah anymore.”

Jonah pauses in his task to raise his eyebrows at Brian, fighting a smile. “You think I’m cool?”

“Shut up, no! Not anymore!” Brian says, barely restraining laughter.

Jonah smiles and takes the other armchair, and then reaches over to Brian to try and steal a controller for himself.

“Uh, nope! You have been demoted from first-round player by virtue of not even bothering to introduce yourself!” Brian says, handing a controller to Allegra, and another to Simone and Jenna so that they may affectionately bicker over that as well.

“You’ve said my name like fifty times, I think they know who I am.”

“Okay, you don’t know who they are, though!”

“Alright, okay, sorry. Hello everyone, I’m Jonah Scott, I’ve gathered you here today for —”

“Oh my god,” Brian groans, in mock-despair.

“You brought this upon yourself by insisting on social niceties,” Pat points out, taking him gently by the arm and tugging him back to the couch. He sits down next to Pat, very convincingly grumpy.

“That’s because I’m trying to be socially nice, Pat Gill! Ugh, you men, I swear.”

“Hear, hear,” puts in Jenna.

“Anyway, Jonah, since you _still_ haven’t asked —”

“You haven’t given me a chance to say anything —”

“This is Simone, Jenna, and Allegra —”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Jonah says, finally managing to finish a sentence without Brian cutting him off.

“I do so appreciate entertainment when I’m visiting my friends,” Simone says. “Love to see a good squabble.”

“Yeah, ‘cause that’s all you and Jenna do,” Brian says. Simone flutters her eyelashes innocently. “Jonah is incorrigible, you are incorrigible, and I hate that you have found an equally incorrigible partner. No, wait, that’s mean, I got carried away in yelling mode, I don’t hate it, I’m really happy for you, actually, I just need to chill out.”

Pat leans over and rests his chin on Brian’s shoulder.

“Thanks,” says Brian, and pats Pat’s cheek. Pat smiles, in perhaps a too-big cheesy way, but fuck it, he’s happy.

Brian starts up the game, and Pat is deciding on what kind of kart to put Wario in when Laura returns. Brian bounces to his feet; Jonah sighs and begrudgingly goes to be a polite host as well.

“It would be really funny if we started the race without him,” Allegra says.

“No it wouldn’t! Don’t you dare!” Brian says from the kitchen.

“He’ll probably ‘accidentally’ pour water all over your lap in revenge. He’s been known to do it. He’s got a bunch of awful meta-game strategies up his sleeve, the cheater,” Jonah says. “What do you guys want to drink? Laura got — ooh, grapefruit beer, how fancy. And also wine? Laura, what kind of party are you having?”

“It’s for me, I wanted it, because we’re out,” Laura huffs. “I will share, though, but not with you, because you’re judgy! And it’s not even the garbage kind Brian gets because he has no taste, so you should feel very sorry.”

Brian pulls a face at that, but doesn’t quibble, and delivers drinks as requested. Simone, equally sophisticated (or something) as Laura, takes her up on her offer to share; the rest of them are delivered cans. There is more crosstalk as everyone figures out what kind of pizza there is, and what kind they want, and how many pieces, and do they want breadsticks, until finally everyone has made their way to the living room with all the appropriate items.

Brian returns to Pat, sets his glass of water and plate on the table next to the couch as he sits down and folds his legs under himself, presses against Pat’s side. Simone and Laura are loudly debating the merits of Peach versus Daisy.

“I should’ve known better than to introduce them. They’re going to get along like a house on fire,” Brian says, looking at them over the rim of his cup.

“So long as they don’t actually set your house on fire, I think it’ll work out alright,” Pat says. His can hisses when he opens it; for a second he’s afraid he’s about to get sprayed in the face. Brian laughs at the expression he must make, and Pat glowers at him as he takes a sip.

“Is it good? Laura’s always trying weird stuff,” Brian says.

“Yeah, I like weird citrusy stuff. You not a fan?” Pat asks, indicating Brian’s water.

“Ugh, I honestly would try it, be a little more celebratory in the wake of our journal news, but,” he drops his voice, a trifle guiltily, so Allegra — who is distracted anyway by the energetic discussion of princesses — might not overhear, “to be honest I don’t even want to think about it too hard. I really cannot emphasize to you enough how sick I was the last time I got drunk.”

“Oof. That’s rough. You must be worse of a lightweight than me; even I can handle a bottle of wine. I mean, badly, but I can.”

Brian snorts. “Oh, I did continue making bad decisions well after you left that day, Pat Gill.”

“Jesus, Brian, you were handling it badly by the time I got there, how are you even alive?”

“But for the grace of god,” Brian says solemnly, and laughs at the expression on Pat’s face. “And also but for Laura all but peeling me off the floor.” He makes a face. “So, big nope on the whole thing for a while, I think.”

“Fair enough. Should I have water instead? Like, will it bother you if I’m drinking?”

“No, no, don’t worry, it’s fine! I just don’t want it, that’s all.”

“What are you boys whispering about?” Simone says loudly, and they both look at her in surprise.

“I bet you didn’t hear a single word of our statistical discussions on Peach and Daisy,” Laura sniffs. “And I _know_ how much Brian likes a good statistical discussion.”

“We were debating Wario versus Waluigi, for your information,” Brian replies, just as haughtily.

“Uh-_huh_. I believe that,” says Jenna.

“Oh my god, I just realized — Pat’s a Wario main, Brian’s a Waluigi main, you guys are, like, soulmates,” Allegra says, and Pat feels his face heat up.

“Pat kinda looks like Waluigi,” Jonah says, saving both of them from having to respond, and Brian makes a distressed sound.

“Oh my god. I can’t unsee it,” Simone says.

“I’m not owned. I’m not owned,” Pat mutters, to make Brian laugh.

“Pat’s a little cuter than Waluigi, I think,” Allegra says.

“That feels less like a compliment and more like damning with faint praise,” Pat says. Allegra grins.

“Don’t worry, Pat, I think you’re much cuter than Waluigi,” Brian says, looking up at him with very wide innocent hazel eyes that are unquestionably hiding some devious plan to con Pat into dressing up as Waluigi for Halloween or something equally terrible. He wraps his arms around Pat’s middle. “Don’t listen to that mean Allegra.”

“You’re too kind,” Pat says, and presses a quick, shy kiss to Brian’s forehead. Brian’s smile turns more genuine, and he gently headbutts Pat’s shoulder before drawing away to finish eating.

Pat quickly becomes concerned, once Brian turns on the game for real this time, that he may not make it through the race unscathed between Brian’s elbows and Allegra’s legs.

“Okay, so, we have rules,” Brian says, as he flips through the track selections.

“Of course you do,” Allegra mutters.

Brian ignores her. “It’d be a little neater with eight people, of course, but we’ll make do. We’ll play a cup — that’s four races —”

“We _know_, Brian.” Simone interrupts. Brian narrows his eyes at her.

“— and the people who get the top two places will go to the next round. Then Simone, Laura, and Jonah get to go, and the top two of them will play the next round too, and then whoever wins that is the winner! Oh, I’m excited, we never have more than four people at once.”

“You nerd,” Jonah says, fondly. Brian sticks his tongue out at him.

“Pat, you wanna choose which one we play?” Brian says.

“This is blatant favoritism,” Jenna says.

“I haven’t played since the DS ver — just kidding, I choose that one you just landed on, it’s got a Wario course and Rainbow Road, I legally have no other option,” Pat says.

Brian selects it, grinning, and kisses Pat on the cheek before the countdown starts.

“Flustering your opponent. Underhanded tactics,” Simone says.

“Shush, you,” says Brian, and promptly curses as he spins out before he can even move forward, having pressed the button too soon.

“I think he may, perhaps, have flustered his own self,” Pat says mildly, drifting through the first corner like he’d not put the game down for years.

Conversation rapidly turns a lot less thoughtfully-snarky and a lot more yelling-the-fuck-word, as shells and banana peels fly, as they battle valiantly through their allotted four races. Brian recovers well from his bad start, but not well enough; Allegra and Pat come in first and second, respectively. They high-five, and Brian groans in despair.

They pass their controllers along to the remaining crew. Simone, Pat knows from experience, will fully shriek when she is losing (or, also, winning) a competitive game; he is not terribly surprised to find that Laura reacts similarly. Pat wraps his arms around Brian, who snuggles up close as they watch the chaos unfold.

“You know, from what you said when you first told me about your _MarioKart_ tournaments, it sounded like there was a lot more singing and friendly competition and less screaming ‘fuck you’ at each other,” Pat says to him.

“To be fair, there’s some pretty forceful personalities in the mix tonight,” Brian says, raising his eyebrows as Simone shouts an extremely creative expletive at a cackling Laura.

“Jonah, I think maybe you should’ve done more swearing, I think that might’ve gotten you to beat Simone,” says Jenna, as a pouting Jonah passes his controller over to Pat. “I’ve done the math and I’m fairly certain that the correlation between usage of the word ‘fuck’ and placement is pretty high.”

“Oh, Jesus, I forgot I was in a room of physicists,” Jonah groans. “Please don’t use any math words at me, dear god, I am a musician.”

Unsurprisingly, the response to this is for everyone to shout whatever math words come to mind. Laura chips in with “multiplication?” and Pat thinks he may die of laughing, this is it, he’s done for.

Once he’s done wheezing, and once Jonah recovers from all of the math flung in his direction, Brian nudges Pat. “Hey, player one, get that race started.”

“Please tell me how Brian made that sound like a weird pet name,” Allegra says.

“It’s like _Star Trek_, like how Picard calls Riker ‘number one’ all the time, it sounds so romantic,” Simone says.

“First math, now _Star Trek_ fanfiction, what is happening in my living room!” Jonah says.

“Not my fault Brian invited a bunch of nerds over,” Laura says.

“Not my fault all my friends are nerds,” Brian says.

“Will you start the race already, Patrick, so everyone can shut up!” Simone says.

Pat finds himself caught up in the commotion enough to shout back at Simone, through laughter, when she gets a blue shell on him and knocks him out of his first-place spot. She cackles, and then cuts off with a yell of anger when Allegra bumps them both out of the way, claiming first place at the very last second.

They watch with bated breath as the points tally up, and sure enough, Allegra snuck in to snatch first place right out from under Pat’s nose. She flings her hands into the air, triumphant. Pat gives her the grouchiest congratulations he can muster, before he loses the fight with his smile.

“Okay, I think we should probably be done with this game for the night, or else we are going to get some serious noise complaints,” Laura says, regretfully, standing to turn off the console. “Anyone else want another drink? If you’re really nice to me I might possibly share my good wine, or else there’s still beer. Or there’s water, I guess, if you want to be responsible.”

“I’ll be responsible, please, if you don’t mind,” says Pat, and Laura laughs.

Once the adrenaline rush of the final race settles out of the room, the atmosphere calms considerably. There is much wheedling of scientists into Laura’s good graces to get her to share; Pat, on the other hand, isn’t really in the mood to drink if Brian’s not, so he accepts a glass of water from Laura — “I’m an excellent host, unlike _some people I could mention_,” she says, with a pointed look at Brian.

In the commotion around drinks, Jonah has slipped out of the room. “He’s like a cat, he doesn’t really like being around a lot of people. I think he liked you guys, though! It can be hard to tell, but I think he’s a fan of my weird nerd friends,” Brian says.

“Speaking of cats! Brian told us you had a handsome young man of your own,” Allegra says.

“I think we scared him off with our yelling,” Laura says. “He’ll come back eventually. Probably. Brian, are you encouraging Zuko to two-time me?”

“I would never! Besides, Zuko’s heart is big enough for both of you.”

Laura and Allegra turn matching suspicious looks on Brian; he returns with his best innocent smile. Unfortunately for him, though, his best innocent smile only comes out when he’s causing mischief, so of course they all know better.

“So, like, what do you guys actually do? I mean, I mostly understand what Brian does, and I think I know what Pat does, sort of? By which I mean, mainly he keeps Brian from going off the deep end? It all seems very abstract.”

“Simone and Jenna do the same sort of thing they do, with the labwork and all that,” Allegra says. “I do more, like, pure math stuff. I bet they couldn’t do half their shit without me.”

“That’s true,” says Pat. “I can do the math shit well enough, but for anything important, I’d definitely trust Allegra or Chelsea a thousand times more than myself. Pretty much everything gets run past them.”

“That’s really cool,” Laura says. “So, what, you get the pure information from them, then test it in the lab?”

“Something like that,” says Simone. “Our research is weird, anyway; applied theoretical physics, like, doesn’t make any sense on a surface level, but it’s basically like… y’know, like how wormholes are a well-known phenomenon that hasn’t been actually observed, even though the evidence is pretty strong that they exist? We’re the ones trying to — well, trying to see those things in real life, I guess. But _safely_, and under highly regulated circumstances,” she adds, shooting a look at Brian and Pat.

“Don’t be rude, Simone,” Jenna chastises.

“What?” says Laura.

“Oh — did Brian tell you what happened last week?” Jenna says, glancing over at Brian nervously.

“A little bit. Mostly just that something happened,” Laura says, now also turned towards Brian, eyebrows raised.

Brian sighs. “I was breaking rules. It was really stupid. I almost ripped open a dimensional rift because I had all the safety mechanisms turned off. Like, okay, yeah, technically a part of our research is trying to see the things we’re studying in real life, but not when they pose unknown risks. Which that, uh, that very much did. You know how I was like… never here? And always working? And just, like, in outer fucking space all the time?”

“Yeah. It was honestly kind of freaking me out,” says Laura.

“From what we can tell, there’s something about some part of this — some sort of exposure to some aspect of it — that, like, made that happen. Pat and I are looking into it; Tara only just gave me all my notes back today. I was, uh. I was going behind Pat’s back, everyone’s back, to try and solve it on my own — I guess to open the rift? I’m not even clear on what exactly it was that I was trying to accomplish. Pat found me and shut the machine down before anything got too serious, but, yeah, that’s why we were in so much trouble. I’m lucky I still have my job. I’m lucky I didn’t get Pat fired too. But we’re all most lucky that Pat was there at the right time to shut everything down before the rift opened. It started to, we saw it, but nothing bad happened because of him.”

“Holy shit,” says Laura.

“So now we’re banned from the lab, and no one’s gonna be touching that shit until we figure out how to make sure what happened to me doesn’t happen to anyone else ever again,” Brian says.

“Good, that’s — that’s good, I don’t want you to be in danger, that sounds — kind of scary?”

“Yeah. We, uh, don’t know what would happen if a rift opened. So. Yes. Pretty scary,” Brian says.

Laura’s eyes are wide. “So I should — I should try harder to do something, if you get all spacey like that again?”

“I hope it doesn’t happen again,” Brian says. “I hadn’t — it’s been a long time since I felt like myself, before this past week.”

Laura presses her lips together, like she has more thoughts than she knows how to say. After a moment, she sighs, and stands. “Well,” she says, “I’m really glad you’re back.” She ruffles his hair, and he turns and wraps his arms around here. She hugs him back. “I’m gonna go chill in my room, probably sleep soon. Anyone need anything while I’m up?”

“We’re probably gonna head out in a few, I think,” says Jenna, who has a sleepy-looking Simone leaning against her shoulder. “Thank you, though!”

“Seriously, Laura, thank you, you’re the best,” Brian says.

“Just remember this the next time I need a favor from you!” Laura says cheerfully. “Don’t make too much racket, especially if Pat stays over, we _do_ share a wall.”

_“Laura!”_ Brian yelps. Pat feels as though he might like to phase into the couch.

“It’s okay, my bed’s on the far side, I’ll turn on some music —”

“Laura, oh my god, you are killing me, I am going to die,” Brian says, dramatically collapsing against the armrest of the couch.

“Be safe!” is her parting remark, before she disappears into her room.

Brian makes a dismayed sound and buries his face against Pat’s shoulder. Allegra is laughing so hard that she has even gotten the attention of sleepy Simone.

“Did I miss something?” she says.

“Laura was teasing Pat and Brian,” Jenna says, tucking Simone’s hair behind her ear.

“Oh, damn, I’m sure they deserved it.”

“They did. They always do,” Allegra says.

“Why is everyone I know so cruel to me!” Brian laments, and then amends: “Except you, Pat, we are alone against the whole world, it is so very sad.”

“Oh, will you shut up,” Allegra says to him.

“See!”

Pat helps Brian get the living room back in order, once the others have left, ignoring Brian’s protests that he doesn’t need to help, and they get ready for bed. They’ve developed a shockingly domestic routine for only having been actually together for a week; they’ve spent more nights together than they haven’t.

“Can’t believe I already have a toothbrush at your place,” Pat quips, as he returns from the bathroom to Brian’s room. Brian rolls his eyes.

“That was here before we were even dating, you dork,” he says. Pat just smiles in response and pulls off his shirt, effectively ending the conversation as Brian quiets to look at him. Pat’s never exactly felt amazing about his body — too gangly or out of shape or bony or skinny — but the way Brian looks at him, he almost feels like he’s something real special.

He doesn’t bother to find a new shirt before he joins Brian in bed. He steps out of his jeans and crawls under the covers with him, and kisses him before the blankets even settle.

* * *

Writing goes more quickly than Pat would like. Not in the losing-time way of recent memory. It’s more mundane than that. It’s the way time slips past when you don’t know what’s coming next and you’re a little afraid to find out.

The day they finish their first draft, they’re in Brian’s bed together. Pat — a quicker (if maybe not neater) typist — has his laptop balanced on his thighs; Brian is lying half-curled behind Pat’s back like a parenthesis, absently flipping through his notebook.

“It’s frustrating that we’ve spent so long looking through this shit and still haven’t come up with any viable hypotheses about why the fuck that bullshit happens to people when they’re around this stuff,” Brian says, dragging a hand through his hair. He props himself up on his elbow and looks up at Pat. “Have you gotten an email back from anyone?”

“Nope. People really do not want to talk about it, it seems like. Kind of like some other people I have encountered, who didn’t even want to tell their partner or boss about anything,” Pat says lightly.

“Whatever. It’s annoying. I just want to know what’s going on so I can get back to work on it.”

“You mean we,” Pat says, and pokes him in the ribs. Brian squeaks and folds in on himself, then glowers at Pat. “You are not doing any science on this project unsupervised, mister.”

“That’s doctor to you,” Brian grouches.

“Why do we all have the same joke?” Pat sighs. “Don’t answer that.”

“We’re physicists. We don’t have to be funny,” Brian says. He curls back around Pat and drops a kiss on his clothed hip.

“Thank god,” says Pat, and reaches down to run his fingers through Brian’s hair. It’s getting longer, soft and wavy and fluffy. It makes him look even more thoroughly like an eccentric scientist. “I think we can call it a draft, though. Should we send it to Tara? Maybe she’ll have some insight on what we might be missing.”

“Yes, let’s,” says Brian. “Then we can take the rest of the day off.”’

“You were planning on that anyway, you layabout,” Pat teases, and fires off the share document email to Tara before flipping his laptop shut. He sets it aside, then turns to Brian. He hardly has the space of a breath before Brian pulls him down by his shirt and kisses him.

From: The Mesa Times Editorial Dep’t.

Subject: XENIUM Report

To: Brian David Gilbert; Patrick Gill

CC: Tara Long 

Attached:  GillGilbertComments.pdf BlackMesaGrantApp.pdf BMRFConSchedule.pdf

Dear Brian and Patrick,

We have received the first draft of your next report. Given the success of your first publication with us, we would like to work with you to develop it further. Please see the attached form for our grant application. We are eager to see further work from your team on this subject. Please keep us updated during the revision and editing process; we have included some feedback for you.

We are also pleased to offer you the opportunity to present your findings at our yearly conference. This will take place at the Black Mesa Research Facility in New Mexico, from June 7th to June 9th.

We have several panel slots available. Please consult the attached schedule for details, and let us know if this is possible for you.

Sincerely,  
Editorial Department

Black Mesa Conference  
  
Tara Long _created group Black Mesa Conference._  
Tara Long _added Allegra Frank, Brian David Gilbert, Jenna Stoeber, Patrick Gill, and Simone de Rochefort to Black Mesa Conference._  
Tara  
You’re all going to behave on this trip, right?  
Actually I don’t want you to answer that, I would like to just assume that the answer is yes. I emailed y’all the tickets earlier, I hope you got them  
Brian  
pat doesn’t read his emails but i got them  
Lies and slander, I saw it before Brian did  
Brian  
yeah but you didnt actually open it  
Simone  
Oh my god are you really going to argue semantics in this group chat while you are probably sitting next to each other irl because you always are  
Brian  
yes  
Yes  
Allegra  
:rolling_eyes:  
Tara  
Well, regardless of who checks whose emails and when, as long as you all have your tickets and are ready to go on time, I’ll call it a success  


**Black Mesa** @BlackMesa · _2h_  
Congratulations to @briamgilbert and @Pizza_Suplex on their April publication. They will be presenting at #BlackMesaConference on Saturday, June 8!

**allegra frank** @LegsFrank · _1h_  
_Replying to @BlackMesa @briamgilbert and @Pizza_Suplex_  
Congrats to the science boys on being smart and Pat’s very professional username

“Pat, what are you fretting about?” Brian asks, scooting his chair over and giving him a sideways look. “You’ve got that eyebrow crease you’re always getting on me about.”

“I always have that eyebrow crease. It showed up when I was twenty,” Pat grumbles. Brian pokes Pat’s forehead, as though that will help.

“What’s going on, though?” Brian asks again, and this time punctuates it by sliding off his chair into Pat’s lap. He frames Pat’s face in his hands, his fingers sliding to the back of Pat’s head, into his hair. Pat closes his eyes and leans into the touch. It’s always easier to tell the truth with his eyes closed.

“I’m really, really worried about this presentation,” he says. “I’m terrified of public speaking. Like, I can do it, but I have the worst performance anxiety. And this is huge. I’m afraid I’ll have a panic attack in front of all those people and look like an idiot.”

Brian’s lips brush his, just once, lightly. Pat’s eyes flutter open. Brian’s expression is so goddamn gentle. “Pat, there’s nothing about having a panic attack that makes anyone look like an idiot. I get it, though. It is scary. We can rework the script, you know, if you want. I love doing this sort of thing; we can find a different way for you to still be involved without having to say so much. Maybe you can do slides, like you did at our last presentation? And we can figure out a smaller part for you to say or something, so you still get to be acknowledged in that way, but there’s less pressure on you.”

Pat slumps a little in relief. “You really think that would work?”

“Of course! It’s our show, we can do whatever the hell we want.”

“Barring, y’know, saying absolutely buck-wild shit.”

“Okay, fair. I pinky-promise I won’t say anything too off the wall,” Brian says, and links his finger with Pat’s for good measure.

“Good to hear.” Pat kisses Brian, just meaning for it to be a quick sweet little thing, but Brian’s fingernails scratch lightly at Pat’s scalp and Pat shivers in pleasure at the feeling, parts his lips to lick into Brian’s mouth appreciatively, hoping he might continue.

After a long moment, though, Brian sits back and clears his throat and says, “Right! Let’s get back to it.”

Pat groans.

**Chelsea Stark** @chelseabot · _20m_  
Just watched @briamgilbert and @Pizza_Suplex give us their presentation as practice for #BlackMesaConference — buckle up, everyone, you are in for a treat.


	11. xi.

“Patrick, where is that gray shirt?” Brian shouts down the hall. “If you took it as pajamas again, I swear I’ll —”

“You packed it already, babe,” Pat says, sticking his head out of the bedroom. “Do you need something to wear? You can borrow something of mine —”

Brian doesn’t even let Pat finish his sentence before he whisks past him and goes for his dresser. His hair is still wet, fully chin-length with the waves weighted down; he’s not wearing a shirt. They have to leave in twenty minutes. Pat crosses the room and traces a fingertip down Brian’s spine as he rummages through Pat’s shirts. Brian gives a full-body shiver.

“Stop it, Pat, you’re distracting me,” he whines. Pat loops his arms around Brian’s waist, rests his hands lightly on Brian’s stomach, and kisses his shoulder.

“Should’ve woken up earlier, then,” he says, as Brian yanks a shirt out of the drawer and pulls it over his head, disengaging Pat and rumpling his own hair in the process.

“Not my fault my boyfriend kept me up last night!” Brian says, already racing off again. “Can you put my laptop and stuff in my backpack? You’re the best!”

“I didn’t say I would!” Pat calls back, already looking around for Brian’s laptop charger.

They make it just in time. Brian looks as rumpled as Pat usually does, in a strange role reversal, his hair still damp and frizzy, wearing a band shirt of Pat’s that he’d forgotten he even owned. His backpack is slung haphazardly over one shoulder, but he has an easy smile on his face as always.

“Took you long enough,” says Allegra, cheerfully. “Brian, you oversleep?”

“Maybe. Pat should’ve woken me up,” Brian says, running a hand through his hair, sensing the disarray and making a futile attempt to do something about it. He wrinkles his nose in frustration and pulls it all back out of his face; it’s long enough to make a little ponytail at the base of his skull when he does. “Pat, how do you keep your hair that long? Mine takes for_ever_ to dry.”

“It’s cause you have so _much_ of it, it’s so fluffy,” says Simone. “You want a hair tie? I’ve got one in my bag.”

Brian appears to seriously consider this, then shrugs and shakes his head. “Nah, I’ll deal with it. I’m the one who hasn’t gotten a haircut in months, I have to live with my fate.”

“You’re going to have to learn how to do a ponytail if Tara ever lets you back in the lab,” Pat says, speaking from experience.

“Oh, I know how to do a ponytail, Pat Gill! I did theatre, if you’ll recall. I just think I’m gonna stick with the mad scientist look, that’s all.”

“You’d have the look anyway, seeing as you already are one,” Jenna teases. Brian makes a face at her.

Pat convinces Brian into letting him have the window seat; Jenna, Simone, and Allegra are in the row in front of them. As soon as it becomes clear that the third person in their row will not be joining them on the flight, Brian sprawls out sort of diagonally, snuggles up against Pat’s shoulder and stretches his legs out. Simone twists around in her seat and offers Pat and Brian one of those sheet face masks. Pat raises his eyebrows at her.

“I travel in comfort and style, Patrick,” she says. “I have extra, I’m willing to share if you want one!”

“I very much do not, thank you, you’re going to look like someone out of a horror movie. Yep, you do, congratulations,” he says, as she carefully applies it to her face and looks at him through the eye holes.

“Jenna, Legs, Brian?”

“Ooh, me,” says Jenna, making grabby hands at Simone. Allegra turns to catch Pat’s eye and shakes her head fondly.

Pat puts his arm around Brian, absentmindedly pets his hair. He smells like Pat’s shampoo, and he’s warm but not unpleasantly so, and Pat really did stay up way too late last night, and it would be so easy to lean into him and close his eyes for a few minutes. What could it hurt?

Brian gently shakes Pat’s shoulder, and Pat makes a very articulate _hmmfh?_ as he blinks awake.

“We’re here, babe, you gotta wake up,” Brian says, now tugging at Pat’s arm.

“Shit, did I really sleep the whole time?” He shifts and his neck and back protest the movement. “Fuck, ow, yep, sure did,” he mutters, fishing his backpack out from beneath the seat in front of him, wincing.

Pat slings his backpack over his shoulder and follows his companions off the plane. His brain is still half-asleep as they navigate the airport and figure out transportation. Brian reaches back and takes Pat’s hand; he’s chatting away with the others, not seeming to mind that Pat isn’t alert enough to keep up.

“Gotta get some coffee in you soon, huh? Must’ve woken you up mid-REM cycle or whatever,” Brian says to Pat.

“Mm. Is that how that works?”

Brian squeezes his hand. “Hell if I know, I’m a physicist, not a somnologist. Is that what that’s called? I assume that’s what that’s called, with the Latin and all —”

Jenna interrupts Brian’s line of reasoning before he pulls his phone out to look it up, singsonging, “Ooh, Pat and Brian have a room to themselves, how scandalous.” This, more than anything, brings Pat back to earth. Jenna is looking at her phone, apparently scrolling through an email. “Oh, god, look at the map, this place is _huge_,” she says, and turns her phone so everyone else can see the screen. “I think we’re mostly gonna be on Level 1 or whatever but look at it, there’s a _tram system_. There’s like a whole city in there!”

They get to experience the tram system firsthand; there is a whole section of the facility that functions as basically a fucking _hotel_, which is already wild before one of the staff members offhandedly mentions that there’s, like, at least three other dormitories, which Pat definitely didn’t see on the map. He wonders just exactly how deep this whole place goes.

Pat and Brian’s room is all the way at the end of the hall; Allegra, Jenna, and Simone found theirs several doors down. “Let’s meet up for dinner before the keynote tonight, okay?” Jenna says. “Five-thirty seem reasonable?”

There is a murmur of assent, at that, and then they go into their room and Brian whisks Pat off further down the hallway with an arm around his waist.

“We’ve got an hour and a half to ourselves, Pat Gill, whatever shall we do?” Brian says, his voice low and teasing.

“Probably get into our room first,” Pat says, and Brian hums in reply and unlocks the door.

Pat flops facedown on the bed at his earliest possible convenience and groans. “Brian, I think my neck is broke,” he says into the bedding.

“Oh, how tragic,” says Brian. There is a thump as he sets his bag down; then the mattress shifts as Brian climbs onto the bed and sits himself right down on Pat’s ass.

“Oof — what are you doing, Bri — _oh_,” he says, as Brian presses his thumbs into the muscles between Pat’s shoulders.

“Jeez Louise, you really are tense,” Brian says, and a sigh whooshes out of Pat when he presses in harder. “Tell me if that’s too much, okay?”

“No, feels good,” Pat says, muffled by the blanket in his face, and Brian huffs a laugh.

“Good, baby, I’m glad,” he says, working his fingers up the sides of Pat’s neck, and it feels so fucking good that Pat can’t help the little whimper of pleasure that escapes him. “You like that?”

“Mm-_hm_.”

“Good, good. Pat, baby, wanna take off your shirt? I can do this better that way.” Brian moves off Pat to let him wriggle around and peel his shirt off, then resumes his previous position. “Arms here — yeah, just like that. Good boy,” he says, and Pat’s dick fucking twitches in his jeans from just that. They do _not_ have enough time for Brian to unravel him the way he seems to want to, what is his game?

“You got an eye on the time?” Pat asks instead, hedging.

“‘Course I do. I’m nothing if not responsible.” A pause. “You doing alright? Want me to dial it back?”

“No — no, this is — it’s really good, Brian, really. Just — uh — wondered what your end goal was.”

“Making you feel good, baby, that’s all. Like always. Want me to lay out my thoughts for you, or do you want me to just go ahead?”

He pauses. Thinks for a moment. He knows Brian would leap away like he’s been burned if Pat ever indicated he didn’t want something Brian did; he’s seen it happen. And he loves this, loves Brian’s hands on him, loves him pressing Pat into the mattress and saying sweet things that make his dick hard and even — maybe — loves knowing that they might run out of time and they’ll have to leave and Pat’ll be pent-up ‘till they get back.

And he trusts him, is the thing. He knows that Brian would never do anything without his best interests at heart.

“I entrust myself to your capable hands, Dr. Gilbert,” Pat says, a little facetious to try and mask the weight behind the words. Even after all this time, he still hasn’t said —

“Well, Dr. Gill, I’m glad to hear it,” Brian says, teasing back. “I’ll take good care of you, baby boy,” he adds, more softly, and Pat pushes his hips down into the mattress, as if he’s not trapped there either way by Brian sitting on his ass.

Brian takes his good sweet time taking Pat apart with his hands, finding every tense spot in his back and shoulders and neck and making Pat moan as he works them out, as he drops well-placed praise every time Pat moves where Brian wants him, every time he switches to a new spot, every time Pat makes a soft desperate sound — the last creating a terrible feedback loop as Pat whines and Brian says _oh you sweet lovely thing you sound so good for me_ and _gosh you’re so responsive just from my hands on you_ and _you like that, baby, you want more?_

Brian works his way to Pat’s lower back, digs his thumbs in right above where his back ends and his glutes start, and Pat half-sobs. He’s rock-hard, panting, and Brian hasn’t done a single thing about it, hasn’t even touched him below his waistband this entire time.

“Fuck,” Brian hisses, and grinds against Pat’s ass; Pat is selfishly triumphant to realize he’s had the same effect on Brian as Brian has had on him. “God dammit, Pat, I’ve really got us both in a state and we have to leave in ten minutes.”

“Shit,” Pat says, intelligently. “Fuck.” Brian climbs off of Pat, off the bed, and stands; he holds out a hand and pulls Pat up too.

“I’d suck you off but I kind of don’t want to right before we go run into a bunch of people? And you already look wrecked enough, you pretty thing, god. Do you want to try and get off before we meet the others, or want to try and chill and we can make up for it later?”

Pat considers. He has no doubt that with even a halfhearted handjob he’d be gone embarrassingly fast, but when he’s like this he knows he’ll just want to cuddle and go to sleep after, and he’ll be disastrously out of it for the whole rest of the night if he doesn’t get at least a little snuggling in first. Though, to be fair, he may still be disastrously out of it for the whole rest of the night, for other reasons.

“I’d rather try and pull myself together in the time we’ve got, I think. Is that okay with you?” Pat says.

“Of course! Of course, baby, whatever you need. Here, how about you go splash some cold water on your face or something. I’m gonna change my shirt to something a little nicer. You want me to find something for you too?”

“Yes, please,” Pat says.

“Such good manners,” Brian says, and leans up to kiss him, just once, so delicately, a whisper of a touch. “Go on, baby.”

“Please don’t keep this up all night, I’ll _die_,” Pat groans as he walks into the bathroom.

“I’ll behave once we’re out of here, I promise!”

Pat looks at himself in the mirror. His face is flushed, his pupils dilated, his hair rumpled. There are faint red marks at the junction of his shoulders and neck where Brian really battled with the tension in his muscles. He sighs deeply and makes a concentrated attempt to focus himself back into the material plane.

Ten minutes later, they are both at the very least fully clothed and decent. Brian’s wearing a floral shirt with a denim jacket and khakis and looks handsome as all hell; Pat is in his standard red flannel and black jeans, the same beat-up combat boots as always, and feels pretty underwhelming in comparison. But Brian holds his hand as they walk over to their coworkers, and that still feels like a gift, every time.

“Took you long enough,” Allegra says, although Pat knows perfectly well that they are but one minute behind schedule. “C’mon, Jenna’s figured out the map, I think.”

The cafeteria is well-populated, but old, with buzzy fluorescent lights and ugly linoleum floors. It looks an awful lot like the dining hall at the college Pat went to. The five of them squeeze into a booth; Allegra slides in next to Simone on the opposite side so Brian and Pat can hold hands under the table without feeling scrutinized. Pat is so grateful for her. Pat, true to his own predictions, is spacey as they chatter amongst themselves. He comes back down to earth a little more when Brian slides a glass of ice water at him with a significant look; the cold on his tongue, down his throat, is grounding.

“Oh, there he is,” Simone says, catching Pat’s eye as he starts to feel a little less fuzzy. Oops. He hadn’t realized he’d been so clearly out of it — “You do anything nice during your break? Ow!” Simone yelps, as Jenna digs her elbow into Simone’s ribs. “What? Oh! Oh, no! I didn’t mean it like that! I’m sorry, Pat, I meant you look like you just woke up!”

Pat is more than used to Simone blundering her way through inadvertent innuendo, and hopes he’s not blushing. “Thanks. No, yeah, traveling always wears me out, you know how it is,” he says, which is vague enough that it’s not a lie.

“This asshole slept on me through the whole flight and he’s still tired,” Brian says, affectionately, flashing a smile at Pat that makes him feel so goddamn warm inside.

“I’m an old man, what can I say.”

“You are not!”

“Pat, I swear to god you have this argument with someone on the daily,” Allegra says. “You’re going to have to face it one of these days: thirty-one is not old and you’re just dramatic.”

“You’re only a year older than I am?” Jenna says. “The way you go on about it, you’d think you’re eighty.”

“Yeah — well —” Pat blusters, “I mean, it’s just —”

“I think he feels a little awkward that his boyfriend is only twenty-five,” Brian stage-whispers, to giggles from across the table and an anguished sound from Pat, who covers his face with both hands.

“Looks like you got it in one!” Allegra says, and Pat looks out from between his fingers to glare at her.

“Nothing wrong with a responsible age gap,” Simone says sagely, swirling her ice cubes around in her glass. She is grinning, enjoying antagonizing Pat, who thinks he would like to melt into the floor. “I, for one, am strongly in favor.”

“_Simone_,” Pat groans, somewhere between distressed and exasperated. She cackles.

Pat hadn’t seen a collection of this many eccentric scientists at once since he was in college. A solid majority are quite a bit older than the five of them; most of the others look like students. Pat thinks even he might look like a student, especially in his present company, since he’s certainly not old enough to be their advising professor or anything.

Wow. Maybe he needs to get over this specific neurosis already.

Maybe he’ll develop some other neuroses instead, like how a gaggle of old dudes with white hair are side-eyeing Brian’s floral shirt and long wavy hair and hipstery glasses, Jenna’s undercut; when Brian notices this, he stubbornly takes Pat’s hand. There is the predictable jolt of anxiety that runs through Pat, but then the old jerks look away and the anxiety drains away and the only thing that matters again is the point where he is connected to Brian.

They get seats in the auditorium about halfway back, close enough that they can actually see the people talking but far enough that it’s reasonable to zone out instead of actually listening. Brian nabbed a program from somewhere on the way in, and Pat leans in to read over his shoulder as he flips through it.

“Hey, look! There’s us,” Brian says, pointing at the schedule.

Saturday, 5:30 PM  
**Xenium & Resonance** \- _Dr. Brian D. Gilbert and Dr. Patrick Gill_

“Damn, didn’t let you get the full middle name, huh?” Allegra says, leaning over Brian’s other shoulder.

“I feel like it’s almost more pretentious this way,” Pat says, and Brian wrinkles his nose at him in mock-annoyance.

“What_ever_.”

Pat doesn’t know anyone else presenting this weekend, at least not personally. He’s read things by a handful of people whose names he recognizes, but there are branches of physics that he really doesn’t know all that much about. It’s not like he really fucks with biophysics in his field, for one thing. He’d honestly never thought he’d so much as set foot in a lab in a professional setting, until he wound up at Polygon and found he had a knack for helping Clayton with his applied research. And, well, of course, then they got the Xenite and the spectrometer, and Brian, and then suddenly it was about making theoretical physics less, uh, theoretical.

Regardless, he certainly doesn’t know the person doing the keynote tonight. He’s sure the director of Black Mesa or whatever will talk at them for a while, of course, and then whatever smartypants they’ve brought in will talk at them some more about the groundbreaking work they’ve done or something.

Pat has never exactly loved a big ol’ boring speech.

Someone who looks — whoa, someone who looks a little eerily like Brian sits down on Allegra’s other side, and introduces themself to her: he is a doctoral student named Thomas Biery.

“Dr. Allegra Frank,” she says, shaking his hand. “This is Pat Gill and Brian Gilbert, and Simone and Jenna down the way —”

“Wow, you really got a lot less formal as you went along there, huh?” says Pat.

Allegra rolls her eyes. “Ugh, fine, Drs. Patrick Gill and Brian David Gilbert and Simone de Rochefort and Jenna Stoeber. Are you happy now, Patrick?”

“Overjoyed,” he says dryly, and she shakes her head.

“You see what I have to deal with?” she says to poor Thomas, who she’s only just met, who laughs, probably not quite sure what else to do. “Gill and Gilbert thinking they’re bigshots now,” she says pointedly, at both of them, “presenting with the big kids.”

“Wait, you’re presenting?” Thomas says, looking at them wide-eyed with interest.

“Yeah, uh, tomorrow at five-thirty,” Brian says, his smile a little self-conscious.

“No way, that’s, like, half the reason I’m here!”

Pat feels his face burning, completely caught off-guard to not only have someone know who he is, but to be there for him.

“Look at you, you’re famous,” Allegra says, probably to tease her new acquaintance as much as Pat and Brian.

“I’m not — I mean — it’s just that my thesis is on that sort of thing,” Thomas says; he’s blushing too, now.

“Allegra, don’t tease the poor guy. That’s awesome, it really is, and I’m flattered you came to see us talk about nerd shit for an hour. I hope we don’t disappoint. When are you graduating?” Pat says, somehow switching back into his ill-practiced academia mode despite the years of disuse.

“This semester, actually,” Thomas says, looking grateful that Pat has saved him.

“You should apply for Polygon when you do!” Brian chirps. “Tara’s always taking on recent graduates. It’s a great gig, honestly.”

Thomas’s eyes practically goddamn sparkle at the suggestion. “I definitely will. To be honest, I was already kind of planning to.”

“Good, do it,” Pat says, and starts to say more, but the lights in the auditorium dim and Pat stops half-leaning across Brian to talk to this guy and sits properly in his seat. It’s not ten seconds before Brian fumbles for Pat’s hand and links their fingers together, resting their hands on Brian’s leg.

The speech is even more boring than Pat had anticipated. He feels himself going glassy-eyed within minutes into the featured speaker’s monotone drawl, and stares at the backs of the heads of the people in front of him instead. The bricks on the wall. The stage lights. The tape on the scuffed stage. The burgundy velvet curtains. The plastic backs of the chairs. The giant speakers on the walls. The lights on the edges of the stairs. He thinks he’s probably dissociating. This happens to him often, when he has to sit in a dark room and watch someone talk, or watch an orchestra play, or watch people sing, or anything else he can’t interact with. It’s very inconvenient.

Brian squeezes his hand and Pat squeezes back. Something better to focus on, at least; Brian’s hand is warm and smooth against Pat’s clammy palm — embarrassing — Brian never seems to mind — and when Pat squeezes Brian’s hand again, just to feel something solid, Brian starts to slowly stroke his thumb across Pat’s. He’s hyperaware of even that minute touch, as a contrast to the weird sort of blankness the dark room and the dull sounds bring, and he concentrates on it.

Even with that, it’s only when the lights come back on and they’re walking out of the auditorium does Pat start to feel like himself again. Thomas the student has disappeared; Brian is still holding Pat’s hand; Jenna has her nose in a program as Simone guides her with a hand on the small of her back; Allegra cranes her neck to look over Jenna’s shoulder.

“Ooh, I really want to see this women in physics panel tomorrow morning, you guys wanna come? And this one that’s a couple slots before Pat and Brian’s is a lot like that project the McElroys are working on, we should go and take some notes for them. There’s some stuff on Sunday that looks good, too, but I won’t count on us not partying too hard for that,” Jenna says, with a sly look across the rest of them.

“What time’s that first one at?” Brian asks.

“Eleven-thirty. We could sleep in and get breakfast and still catch it, if you want?”

“I’m down,” Pat says, and apparently he was the only one that they weren’t sure would tag along, because it seems to be settled at that. He’s not sure whether the presumption was that he would sleep through it or that he wouldn’t be interested in listening to women talk about their experiences or both or neither or maybe he’s overthinking it. He lets it be without comment, as they walk down the maze of hallways. A deep sigh drags its way out of him, instead.

“Yeah?” Brian says, tracing a fingertip along Pat’s forearm. He doesn’t actually seem to need a response, though; Pat simply hums and Brian presses closer to him. The fluorescent lights in the facility aren’t flattering to anyone, yet somehow Brian manages it. He looks so much less exhausted than he used to; the shadows on his face are just regular shadows, the kind that disappear again when he moves beneath the next light. His eyes are clear, green-gold, and his smile is calm and sweet and comforting and maybe a little suggestive, when he catches Pat staring at him. He winks, and Pat can’t help but smile back.

They don’t talk much, back in their room, as they change out of their day clothes. Pat finds his toothbrush and wanders into the bathroom in just his jeans; when Brian joins him he’s in only a t-shirt and underwear. He stands behind Pat and wraps his arms around him loosely, resting the side of his head on Pat’s back.

“You’re making it awful hard to brush my teeth,” Pat says around a mouthful of toothpaste.

“Deal with it,” he says, and holds onto Pat and giggles as Pat leans down to spit out the foam and rinse his mouth, and goes with him too as he straightens back up. He pecks Pat’s cheek, and Pat leaves him to his ablutions.

He leaves his jeans in a pile on the floor, because he is the worst, and considers for a moment before he abandons all pretense entirely and slides under the covers in just his underwear. Fuck, he’s _tired;_ it hits him in a crashing wave as soon as his head touches the pillow. He’s struggling to keep his eyes open by the time Brian peels off his shirt and leaves it similarly crumpled on the floor to join Pat in bed. At least they are equally the worst.

“Hey, you,” Brian says softly, his breath on Pat’s lips as he presses up against him. He smells like mint.

“Hey,” says Pat, and then can’t help a massive yawn. Brian laughs and pushes his hands into Pat’s hair, rubbing his scalp in the way he knows Pat likes.

“I’m getting the impression you might want to just go to sleep,” Brian says.

“I’m thinking your impression might be right,” Pat says, tucking his face against Brian’s shoulder. Fuck, it’s nice to touch him, even though he swears he rarely isn’t these days. He drops a kiss on Brian’s collarbone, simply because he can. “Sorry, it’s been a real long day. Travel does wipe me out, that wasn’t some excuse just for them. Raincheck?”

“Of course, Pat. Don’t even worry about it. You never have to justify it to me,” says Brian, dear wonderful Brian who presses a soft kiss to Pat’s temple and keeps petting his hair. “Sleep well, sweetheart.”

“G’night, Brian,” Pat mumbles against his chest, wiggling around until his head is on a pillow and not Brian’s arm. Brian keeps petting his hair as Pat wraps his arm around Brian’s waist, pulls him close, keeps him there as he drifts off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> complaining via fanfic: the same exact thing that happened to pat in this chapter happens to me every single time i am in a dark auditorium. i am a classical musician and have had to watch 3476538465 concerts as part of my college minor and also i love to go to concerts and recitals and stuff anyway!!! its just my brain decides that it's Time To Dissociate for some reason?? VERY INCONVENIENT, MILDLY DISTRESSING, ZERO STARS DO NOT RECOMMEND (its okay though im fine [and so is he] it's just like.......... Why)


	12. xii.

Pat wakes up to Brian trying to sneak out of bed without disturbing him.

“Aw, shit. Sorry, I was trying to be careful,” Brian says softly, a sheepish half-smile on his lips.

“What time’s it?” Pat slurs, one eye open, his brain and voice not connecting yet.

“Nine-thirty. I was gonna come get you once I was out of the shower.”

“Hm. Well. ‘M already awake, wanna make that a joint activity?” Pat says, pushing himself into a sitting position. Brian laughs and kisses his forehead.

“As long as you don’t fall asleep in the shower and knock us both over.”

“Unlikely,” Pat huffs, and gets up.

He’s not chatty in the morning, unlike Brian, who has a whole lot of get-up-and-go pretty much all of the time. So he lets Brian prod him into the shower and lets Brian’s complaints about the hotel shampoo wash over him alongside the hot water.

“Could’ve brought your own,” Pat points out, as Brian squints at the tiny bottles of shampoo and conditioner.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t,” Brian says, in a very well-thought-out and well-constructed argument. “I think it’s very rude of you to be taller than me. C’mere and let me fuck with your hair.”

Pat catches Brian’s eye, winks at him, and drops to his knees. Brian stutters, but doesn’t get an actual word out. “I’m not sucking your dick, for the record.”

“Aw, shucks,” Brian says, but he’s laughing, in no way actually bothered. Pat closes his eyes so shampoo doesn’t run into them as Brian works his hands through his hair. He sighs, feeling some of the jittery tension that’s already starting to build inside him lift away at Brian’s touch, as soap and warm water traces down his spine. Brian is so persistently _gentle_ with him, careful and sweet, like he thinks Pat’s something to be treasured.

They meet up with the others in the cafeteria again. Simone is griping about the lack of whatever it is that is her preferred morning beverage these days — it was some sort of broth thing last week, and she and Pat argued all day about whether or not it qualified as soup (it’s _soup_) — and Allegra is staring at the hazelnut coffee creamer like it might hold the secrets to the universe. So they’re all doing great.

Brian and Jenna both stand out amongst the crowd of people getting coffee, both of them brightly colored and giggling with each other about something or other. Brian had gone more colorful than Pat had anticipated; he’s got a royal blue suit on, and he looks charmingly eclectic with his wild wavy hair and his big glasses. Pat went a lot simpler, with slate gray and a plain white shirt, but — he thinks — they look pretty good side by side.

“Look at us, what a fancy bunch,” Allegra says, once Jenna and Brian rejoin the group. Brian passes Pat a coffee and bounces up on his toes to kiss Pat’s cheek. “Even Pat managed to get into a suit, can you even believe it.”

“And yet no power on the face of the earth could get this man to wear a tie,” Brian sighs, forlorn. “I didn’t realize we had a floral theme going on, I would’ve made Pat coordinate too!”

“You would’ve tried,” Pat says. Brian rolls his eyes, fondly. Brian’s shirt has a pattern that Pat had thought was little dots but they are, in fact, little flowers. Simone is wearing a long sundress with big red roses splashed across the dark background; Jenna has a pin on her blazer that matches Simone’s roses; Allegra’s dress has flower-print lace at the shoulders. Pat feels doubly plain in comparison, now, but he supposes it’s alright. It’s not as though he’s vying for attention. He’s never minded being upstaged by Brian, perfectly happy to support him more quietly.

The range of fashion amongst the conferencegoers is wide; there’s everything from lab coats to stiff black suits to weird silly ties with colorful equations on them to t-shirts advertising schools or events. It’s reassuring, honestly, to not feel like any of them are the odd ones out, because everyone seems like the odd one out.

It seems like Pat blinks and the late morning and early afternoon have disappeared. He can already feel the tightness in his chest starting to build, foreshadowing the impending blast of anxiety to come. He and Brian opt to skip the panel the others decided to go to for the McElroys’ project, and instead find a quiet corner to sit down and go over their notes and script one last time.

“You okay?” Pat asks Brian, who is fidgety, flipping through papers — but Brian looks up at him and _grins_, eyes bright and excited.

“Yeah! I feel really prepared, we’ve been over everything so many times and I know what I’m going to say, I know the content like the back of my hand, and I — I’m so excited to share this with everyone, Pat.”

This manage to get a genuine smile out of Pat. “Hey, I’m glad to hear that. That’s a far cry from the guy who didn’t want to so much as breathe a word of anything to Tara, yeah?”

Brian’s expression softens into something like relief. “Yeah. You know, I — thank you, Pat, really, I just. I really appreciate you being here. Sticking around through all of this. I know it hasn’t been easy. But — you know — there’s. There’s no one I’d rather do this with than you.”

“Brian,” Pat says, and he tries for sincerity, he really does, but he misses by a country mile and instead says, “of all the people I’d want to do this with, you’re at the top of the list.”

Brian snickers, and rolls his eyes, but reaches out to put his hand on top of Pat’s where it’s resting on the table. “You’re a dork. I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me too,” Pat says, ducking his head a little, and Brian leans forward the tiniest bit, tilting his head so he can keep eye contact with Pat even though he’s _shy, alright, he’s embarrassed_ — it’s so charming that Pat wants to lean across the table and kiss that sweet smile off his lips. But he can’t, because they’re in a public professional setting, so he settles for flipping his hand over beneath Brian’s and lacing their fingers together.

When they reconvene with their compatriots, a security guard lets them into the room to set up. Simone has recording equipment, because Tara wants to see the presentation and someone was toying with the idea of putting it online, so she goes to the back of the room with Jenna and Brian to set up the camera. Allegra leans over the table to pester Pat as he and the security guard — Matt? — try to finagle Pat’s laptop into connecting to the projector.

They finally get Pat’s screen to show up; his background is currently, still, a picture of Toad he photoshopped as a joke a couple years back, but thankfully the PowerPoint window is covering most of the screen.

“Patrick, _when_ will you change your background, oh my god,” says Allegra, because nothing slips past her. He scowls and full-screens the window so that no one can see what nonsense he has going on behind it.

“I will not,” he says petulantly, and she scoffs.

“Your funeral if you accidentally minimize your presentation and everyone sees your Toad with hairy man legs.”

“It’s a good Toad,” Pat says, half-reflexively, entirely stubbornly. Allegra rolls her eyes, and wanders off to see what is going on with Simone. Brian takes her place, leans against the table, jittery-nervous-excited and smiling like sunshine.

“You still doing alright?” Pat says.

“For sure. I live for this shit, don’t you know, Pat Gill? I’d do a whole song and dance up here if they’d let me.”

“Maybe at the next one. The arts and sciences crossover conference.”

“I bet more people would listen to a lecture about physics if it had a dance break in the middle.” Brian looks genuinely thoughtful about this. “Hm. They should let me teach college courses.”

“Wait ‘till you’re older than the students, at least,” Pat teases, and Brian scoffs.

“Whatever, Patrick. You’re not, either, half the doctoral candidates in my graduating class were older than you.”

“I know, I know, I was on the young side ‘cause I went straight through from my undergrad, I just have a complex about my age, yes, you got me again,” Pat says; he keeps his tone light, though, not actually annoyed.

“At least you acknowledge it! That’s the first step,” Brian says. “You ready for this?”

“Honestly? I’m terrified. I hardly have a paragraph’s worth of things to say and I’m still all fucked up on performance anxiety. But you’re gonna knock it out of the park.”

Brian smiles, that lovely crooked half-smile. “Thanks, Pat. You’re gonna do so good, I know you will. I believe in you.”

Pat can only smile back, suddenly overwhelmed by the circumstances. Here he is, at Black fucking Mesa, about to present his own work in front of some of the most important people in his field, and he’s sitting here staring awestruck at Brian. Brian, who blows his mind constantly, who takes his breath away, who’s smarter than any goddamn person he’s ever met and gorgeous and patient and kind to boot, who’s never an asshole about how fucking brilliant he is. Brian, who shares a bed with him more nights than he doesn’t; Brian, who laughs at Pat’s stupid jokes and who listens to him when he needs to talk and who holds his hand and who kisses him gently and who looks at him like he’s something to be treasured, all the time, always.

Brian, who he’s fallen facefirst in love with like it’s as easy as breathing.

The realization doesn’t come to him as a shock. Not really. It catches him between one heartbeat and the next, like he’s collided with something, but something real soft that he just goes _whump_ against, all gentle, caught safely.

He opens his mouth to say something — he has absolutely no idea what — but is interrupted by someone else poking their head into the room to let them know that they have five minutes until they start to let people in, so please be ready by then.

So Pat looks back at his laptop, instead, and scrolls back to the first side. White text on black, _XENIUM & RESONANCE_, line break, _Drs. Brian David Gilbert and Patrick Gill_. Brian had offered Pat the first credit, for his seniority, and — Pat thinks — because he feels a little bad to be taking so much of the spotlight. But Pat had shrugged him off, _let’s just go alphabetical, it makes the most sense_. Brian had put up an obligatory protest, but Pat doubts he actually minds.

Pat can’t help it; he loves to watch Brian shine.

Brian slides into the chair next to Pat. They’re sitting facing the crowd; Brian will stand to speak, Pat is sure, because the man never stops _moving_, but for now he simply folds his hands in front of himself and tosses a saucy wink in Simone’s direction. She sticks out her tongue in response.

Pat can’t get over how good Brian looks — and also, how perfectly he fits the part of an eccentric scientist. His hair is wavy and sort of wild — it’s fluffy, is the thing, there’s so much of it. It gives him an air of intentional dishevelment, of being too smart and preoccupied to tame it further than brushing it back out of his face. His suit, too, suits him well; the color, the fit, the style, it’s perfect on him, and contrasts with the peachy orange of his shirt with the little tiny flowers.

And his smile. God, his _smile_ — positively radiant, especially when he turns it on Pat, those big hazel eyes sparkling, framed by his glasses.

“You ready, Patrick Gill?” he asks softly.

“As I’ll ever be,” Pat says back, and as though through some cosmically-planned timing, the door opens, and the audience begins to enter the room.

There are a lot more people than Pat thought there would be, and they look interested. Curious. Intrigued glances flicker across Pat and Brian; Pat pretends to be invested in something on his laptop without actually touching anything, so he doesn’t have to make eye contact. Brian, though, is smiling away, already engaging with his audience.

Pat has a realization, suddenly, more jarring than his previous one: _oh, shit, this actually might really go okay_.

He blinks quickly a few times, and watches as the seats are filled with scientists, talking quietly, eagerly, amongst themselves.

And then the clock hits :30.

Brian stands from his seat and walks to the microphone, plucks it off the stand. He looks more at ease than Pat has ever felt in his life.

“Good evening!” he says, jubilant, and it is showtime.

Brian is fucking funny, is the thing. He’s quick and witty and charming as all hell, snappy with a punchline and captivating with movement, so you can’t hardly look away. He adamantly refuses to stand still; he gestures with his whole body and grins impishly when he drops an exciting new piece of information and tosses his hair back out of his face and there’s not an eye in the room that doesn’t have its full attention on him.

He’s like the sun, burning bright and brilliant. He’s _electric_. Pat sees frantic note-takers amongst the crowd scribbling down every point Brian makes; he sees others with pens held loosely in distracted hands, too caught up in Brian’s speech to remember to write.

Pat is so goddamn _proud_ of him.

There’s a moment, when Brian is talking about something Pat did, when he suddenly hops up onto the raised platform that the table is on and, in his momentum, puts his hand on Pat’s shoulder to emphasize his point and acknowledge him. Pat, impulsive, habitual, reaches up and puts his hand on the small of Brian’s back.

He’s five feet nine inches of dense, lean muscle and pure kinetic energy. He’s a brand of fire beneath Pat’s palm, breathing hard and sweating and radiating heat and enthusiasm. As soon as Pat touches him, he’s darting away again, but god, how marvelous it is that he gets to touch him at all.

It goes by in a blur. They have a bit where Pat interjects from the table; Brian smiles so wide and genuine and generous when Pat makes it through and hardly even stutters, and despite the pulse roaring in Pat’s ears, he thinks it went okay. No one is giving him a weird look; the few eyes still on him are just mildly curious, interested, and then Brian does an excited spin on his heel before launching into the conclusion and no one pays Pat any additional mind.

Brian whisks over to Pat, at the end, puts his hand on Pat’s shoulder again as he says _thank you, thank you thank you thank you_, and _Dr. Patrick Gill, everybody — he’s a good one_.

There’s a little Q&A slash meet-’n-greet, after. Pat goes to Brian’s side; he’s still radiating heat and energy when Pat is shoulder-to-shoulder with him. There are a lot of handshakes, and enthusiastic questions, and Pat finds that Brian leaves Pat more space to talk here, one-on-one, where he’s more comfortable. He appreciates that, appreciates being given the chance to show off a little too, to demonstrate that yes, he really does know what he’s talking about.

Even that ends, though, and once the room has cleared out Brian wraps his arms around Pat’s bicep and he smiles, smiles, smiles, like he hasn’t stopped doing this whole time. His face is flushed and his eyes are shining.

“That was amazing,” Pat says. “You killed it, Brian, you did so well.”

“So did you!” Brian says, and Pat leans in and presses a quick, shy kiss to Brian’s cheek. Brian laughs, pure joy. “Oh, that was so fun, that felt so good, did you see how impressed that one old guy looked when you rattled off the specs on the samples, like he was trying to trip you up but you knew it anyway, it was awesome, and —”

“Someone likes being applauded for,” says Simone, appearing behind them, and when Brian turns she wraps him in a hug.

“You can take the kid out of the theatre, but you can’t take the theatre out of the kid,” Pat says, and Brian rolls his eyes but doesn’t stop beaming. Pat wonders how long this adrenaline high is going to last.

“That was so good, though, you guys,” Jenna says; Simone nods enthusiastically. Pat glances around for Allegra, and then makes a startled sound when she reveals herself by flinging her arms around Pat from behind.

“You big ol’ nerds, I’m so proud of you,” she says into Pat’s back. She releases him and then flings herself at Brian, who goes with her momentum and swings her around in a half-circle, both of them laughing hysterically.

“Come on, let’s go celebrate you two dorks being smart and successful in front of a crowd,” Simone says, and links her arm through Pat’s.

“Can we stop at our room so I can change first? I am so goddamn sweaty,” says Brian.

“Yes. Also, gross,” says Allegra.

Jenna has studied the map, and has discovered that there is, in fact, a bar inside of this research facility — “I mean, people live here, I knew there was probably gonna be a place to get alcohol, since you can’t in the cafeteria,” was her reasoning, which is more logical than Pat ever is — and so a half-hour and a set of more comfortable clothes later, the five of them are crunched into a booth together.

Brian’s wearing a soft gray shirt that may have, in fact, originally been Pat’s, and he’s leaning against Pat and stirring his fancy drink with his straw with an elegant hand, iridescent nails catching the light. It’s something sweet and colorful, something that — if Pat had to guess — would get you fucked right up in a glass and a half, and that he’d bet his right arm that Brian won’t drink more than a couple sips of, and only that much to be polite because Simone got it for him.

Simone is in the middle of a story about the last time she was out with Clayton and Jeff and talked them into doing karaoke when their food arrives, and she hardly breaks her thought for a second, thanking the waiter in the same breath as she does a truly awful impression of Jeff’s rendition of _Call Me Maybe_.

They’re all laughing and it feels good. Pat isn’t left out and that feels good too, with Brian’s eyes fixed on him when he talks and Simone’s loud cackling laugh making people turn to give them annoyed looks. He can’t find it in himself to care, not really, not when Allegra flicks a straw wrapper at Pat and it bounces off his forehead and he throws his head back to laugh, carefree in a way he hasn’t been in what feels like eons.

Their colleagues have taken advantage of the excuse to get giggly-drunk, and Pat can’t blame them. Brian’s not drinking — Simone reclaims his drink as her own — and Pat doesn’t want to if he’s not, so he has approximately half a beer, too distracted anyway by talking. He’d rather — much rather — leave that behind in favor of whatever Brian’s got in mind for later, once they’re alone together.

They are cordially invited to continue their shenanigans in the others’ room — Allegra informs them conspiratorially that they have _refreshments_ — but Pat and Brian politely decline. They get snickered at, a little, but no opposition is posed. Pat figures the three of them will probably have plenty of fun without them, and can gossip to boot.

The second the door to Pat and Brian’s room is shut and locked behind them, they’re both grabbing for each other — dragging each other into a hungry, desperate kiss, then laughing against each other’s lips as they realize they were on the same agenda.

Pat backs Brian against the wall, his hands on either side of Brian’s head. Brian looks up at Pat through his eyelashes and grabs Pat by the hips; Pat captures his mouth in a bruising kiss, fierce and wanting. He gets his hands in Brian’s hair and presses hot, openmouthed kisses down Brian’s neck.

“Christ, Brian, do you have any idea how fucking incredible you are?” Pat says against his skin. “You’re brilliant, you’re — fuck, you’re so talented and hot and — god, seeing you like that, you — you’re so goddamn _good_ at what you do, everyone loved you, you had everyone hanging on your every word. You blow my mind, Brian, you take my breath away. God. I’m so proud of you. I’m so lucky to be here with you.”

He could say it now. He could tell him. The words are on the tip of his tongue. But he licks Brian’s neck, instead, drawing a breath as he does so, and Brian’s hands tighten on Pat’s hips.

“Pat,” says Brian, and pauses to gasp when Pat lightly drags his teeth across the hollow of his throat, “Patrick, I’m so fucking glad you’re here, I wouldn’t want this with anyone else, you’re the only reason I’m here ‘cause we did this _together_ and you never gave up on me not even when I was an absolute piece of shit and — and, Pat, I — you — you mean so much to me.”

Pat pulls him back into a proper kiss, his heart racing as Brian pushes his hands up Pat’s shirt and presses his fingers into Pat’s back, holding him tight against him. His hands are warm — he’s always so warm — and he’s solid and yields to Pat’s touch as he gives back in kind. He runs his hands back down Pat’s back and then shoves them into the back pockets of Pat’s jeans, grabs his ass and hauls him up against Brian. Pat makes a choked sound and Brian smirks against his lips — _bed? — yeah, yes, please_.

It’s easier for them both to unceremoniously strip to their underwear instead of fumbling with each other’s clothes as is the romantic cliche, because they’re a couple of uncoordinated assholes and someone will inevitably get an elbow to the face. But Pat gets up on the bed, gets on his hands and knees over Brian, who is flat on his back, hair splayed out across the pillow. He reaches out for Pat and traces his thumb along Pat’s clavicle, almost reverent.

“Gosh, you’re beautiful,” Brian says softly.

“I’m in love with you,” says Pat, with no forethought — it just falls out of his mouth, as natural as if he’s been saying it this whole time. Brian’s whole expression changes: his lips part and his eyes go wide with surprise, then _absolute sheer delight_, and then he’s pulling Pat down into his arms and showering his face with sweet little joyous wondering kisses and giggling.

“Pat Gill, oh my god, Pat, _Patrick_, I love you so _much_,” he says, between kisses, and now his glee has rubbed off onto Pat and he can’t stop smiling, either, trying to kiss Brian’s face while Brian is trying to kiss his. They bump noses a few times but it only makes them laugh, trading soft overjoyed _I love you_s back and forth, as if now that it’s been said it’s all they ever want to say again.

Pat catches Brian’s lips against his, amidst all the fluster. Brian pushes his hands into Pat’s hair and keeps him there, licks into Pat’s mouth, kisses him with the desperation of a man who has been offered his wildest dreams and is trying to catch them, hold them, _keep_ them, all at once.

Pat can relate.

Brian hooks his leg around Pat’s to hold him against him, right where he wants him. Pat loves this man perhaps more dearly than he’s ever loved anything else, right up to and including the way he refuses to set his bossiness aside for even one second. Pat indulges him, rocks his hips against Brian, drawing a gasp out of him.

“Pat Gill, you are lovely and perfect and the light of my life and I also would very, very badly like for you to fuck me into this mattress, please.”

Brian _absolutely_ looks too smug to have not noticed how Pat fucking twitched in response to his words alone.

“I came prepared, front pocket of my bag, if you’d like,” Brian says, and Pat all but dives off the bed for it, comes back up with a palmful of packaged lube and condom, sets it aside within reach for if and when he should need it. Brian’s gaze is heavy as Pat straddles his thighs and hooks his thumbs into the waistband of his underwear.

Pat takes the opportunity to just look at him, sprawled out and flushed like this, his full attention laser-focused on Pat. Pat traces his fingers over Brian’s sides, and Brian wriggles a little, ticklish. Pat leans down and presses a kiss to Brian’s sternum, right at the center of his chest, and Brian strokes Pat’s hair. He lingers there, riding on the rise and fall of Brian’s chest, the thud of his heartbeat, for a long moment before sitting back up and moving off of Brian’s legs.

Brian lifts his hips for Pat to get his underwear off him; he’s already mostly hard, and his whole body jerks when Pat palms his cock.

“Sorry,” says Pat.

“Don’t be, ‘s good, felt good,” Brian says quickly, and Pat laughs. “Shush, you. Get naked with me already.”

Pat does not need to be told twice. Brian makes grabby hands at him as soon as he complies, beckoning him in for kisses. Pat swears he could do nothing but make out with Brian for the rest of his life and he’d be content. He kisses like a dream. Brian’s got a clever mouth and a knack for finding just exactly what Pat likes, pulling soft moans out of him by twisting a hand into his hair and sucking on his lip. It’s maddening. He can’t get enough.

Pat runs a hand down Brian’s chest, ribs, hip, and grabs his ass, hitching Brian up against himself. Brian gives a surprised sort of grunt and shifts his hips in a way that makes the sound change halfway through into a moan.

“Feel good?” Pat says softly against Brian’s jaw, brushing featherlight kisses over his skin.

“Yeah,” Brian gets out, rocking his hips again, again, again, until Pat sits back on his heels and gets Brian by the hips with both hands, drags him closer. Brian’s legs are spread, feet planted on either side of Pat, and his eyes are wild. Bossy as Brian can be, Pat knows how much he likes it when Pat takes initiative, and so he anticipates the whine that wrenches its way out of him when Pat wraps his head around Brian’s cock — though it certainly has no less effect on him, for being predicted.

“God, I want to — half of me wants to draw this out all night and half of me wants to see how good I can make you feel right fucking now,” Pat says, and Brian writhes.

“Why not both? I’ve got a couple rounds in me, thank you very much,” Brian says, and that’s as sound of logic as anything Pat’s ever heard, so he starts to move his hand on Brian, slowly at first. Brian groans and goes boneless-pliant, hips angled up to meet him, hands in his own hair, looking breathlessly up at Pat.

Brian has a talent, Pat thinks, for finding what feels good and living in it. His whole body is trembling a little with want, but he doesn’t try to wring it all from himself at once. He lets Pat set the pace, enjoying it at the tempo he takes it at, knowing there’s even more and maybe even better still to come but taking in every joyous moment beforehand, too.

Pat dips his head to press a kiss to Brian’s leg, next to his knee; then, bolder, he leans down to bite at the inside of his thigh. Brian whines as Pat holds him still, his hand wrapped around the base of his cock, as he sucks a dark bruise into his skin. There’s a mostly-faded one on the other side; Pat gets his mouth on that one, too, for good measure, before he goes back to stroking Brian.

“D’you want me to let you come now, or do you want to hold off on that for a little bit?” Pat says.

“Oh — wait on that, please, will you? I love this part,” Brian says, and Pat moves his hand away. Brian gives a small whimper at the loss of contact, but pushes himself up into a sitting position and pulls Pat into a truly spectacular kiss.

Pat loves this part too, when Brian is needy and vocal and wiggly-desperate-energetic, trying to get his mouth on Pat’s and trying to touch him in every way that is remotely possible and succeeding at a maximum of half of these things at any given time.

“Pat, Patrick, c’mon, touch me,” he whines, and Pat laughs against his lips.

“I thought you just told me to wait?” he says, and ghosts his fingers over Brian’s cock. Brian gasps sharply and rolls his hips to chase the touch, but Pat’s hand is already gone.

“Are you gonna fuck me? I think you should fuck me, maybe, if you’re up for it,” Brian says. Pat considers. They don’t do that often; Pat psyches himself out of it too easily — and, in fact, has on multiple occasions — for some reason this applies less the other way around — but then he spends approximately half a second thinking about how incredible it would feel to be inside him and his dick twitches and, fuck it, yes.

“I’d love to,” Pat says.

Brian adds quickly, “There’s no pressure — if you’d rather not, we can do something else —”

“No, really, I would love to. Come here,” Pat says, and Brian presses up against Pat, kisses him for good measure. “Here, no, turn around, I’m self-conscious if you look at me —” Brian needs no further urging before he scoots away, flips around so his back is to Pat. Pat spends an indulgent moment wrapping his arm around Brian, splaying his hand out across his stomach, pressing a kiss to the back of Brian’s neck. Brian hums and leans back against Pat, hips thrusting forward as though that would somehow get Pat’s hand on his dick.

“Patience, baby,” Pat says, and nips Brian’s earlobe for good measure. Brian makes a surprised noise, but leans into it, and Pat licks behind his ear — half as a joke — and doesn’t expect the moan that comes from Brian and goes straight to Pat’s dick. “Fuck,” Pat breathes, mindful of his proximity, and bites his ear again, tugging gently. “Didn’t know you were so sensitive there.”

“Me neither,” Brian says. “Learn new things every day.”

Pat huffs a laugh and nudges Brian forward. He laves the back of Brian’s neck, his shoulders, his upper back with kisses. Brian spreads his knees — fucking flexible jerk — and slowly stretches his torso down, so he’s on his elbows and knees, showing off the perfect lines of his body.

Pat leans down over him and presses his his mouth to the base of his spine, then drags the flat of his tongue up along the center of his back. Brian _gasps_ at this, but by his own doing and with Pat against him, he is hardly able to move. He tastes like salt, like sweat, and Pat wants to take him _apart_.

He searches blindly across the blankets with his hand until he runs into the condoms, the little bottle of lube. He tears one of the packages open and snaps it over his hand. He honestly didn’t even think to bring anything, so he’s glad in Brian’s rush to pack he at least had enough forethought for fucking.

“Pat, come on,” Brian says, that whiny catch still in his voice.

“I will take all the time I damn well please, thank you very much. Here, move up a little — yeah, there you go, sorry, just don’t wanna break my fuckin’ wrist at that angle —” Brian snickers. “— shut up, let me know if this is too cold.”

“No, that’s good, thank y — _you_, oh.”

“Tell me if I’m going too fast.”

“No, not at all — I can take it, I promise, I practice —”

“Good lord, is that what you’re calling it these days? Practicing?”

“Shut _up — nnh_, yes, just like that, fuck, Pat, that’s good.”

Brian kneels up, twists his torso so he can kiss Pat, who is focusing maybe a little too intensely to kiss back properly, but he braces his arm across his chest so Brian doesn’t fully have to use his core strength to hold himself up, lets Brian lick into his mouth possessively until the strange way he’s positioned gets too uncomfortable and he wiggles until Pat lets go, so he can drop back down to hands and knees. He rocks back against Pat’s fingers and moans, probably at least partly for show, but damn if it doesn’t work.

“So needy,” Pat teases. “I think we’re good to go, though, give me a sec, okay? Get comfy for me, baby, you’re so good.” He goes as quick as he can to dispose of the used condom and wash his hands and he catches a glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror. His face is flushed red all the way to the base of his neck; his dick is hard even though he hasn’t touched himself in what feels like an eternity; his hair is a mess; his hands are excited-shaky.

Brian has moved again, in Pat’s absence; he is facing him, now, sitting closer to the head of the bed. He looks the picture of desire — both the subject of Pat’s, and also the picture of being _absolutely fucking ready to get railed, Patrick Gill, are you going to leave me like this all night?_

Pat rolls his eyes and gets up onto the bed.

“I have never met anyone more demanding than you,” Pat says. “Nor bossy.”

“Wow, rude!” Brian says, but he’s grinning. His cheeks are pink and his hair is wild and his eyes are bright and focused and he looks so fucking good. Pat is momentarily distracted from his own fumbling hands, but finally finally _finally_ manages to get himself situated.

“Alright, alright, you’ve waited enough,” Pat says, lightly tapping Brian’s thigh to get him to move it. Brian positively lights up; he puts his arms around Pat, his hands resting at the small of his back.

Pat is so careful with Brian, even though Brian is desperate for him and complains at him to try and get him to hurry up, but his care is rewarded when he finally bottoms out and Brian moans and digs his fingernails into Pat’s skin, pushes his face against Pat’s shoulder.

“Can I move,” Pat asks in a rush of an exhale.”

“_Please_,” Brian says.

It makes Pat’s head spin, how fucking _good_ it feels to thrust up into Brian, and the hungry little wanting-noises that Brian makes in response are even better than that. They don’t do this much, and he nearly forgets in the interim how wonderful it is, to fuck Brian, to get him under him, panting, his hair sticking to his forehead damp with sweat, grabbing at Pat in whatever way he can just to hold _on_ to him.

Brian is a talker. He is instructive — _harder, fuck, yes, like that, god_ — and whiny — _will you go faster, Pat, Christ, I won’t break apart_ — and appreciative — _yes, yesyesyes, oh god yes thank you fuck please yes_ — all in turn. Pat, on the flipside, can hardly think to string two words together, can only pound into him with quiet staccato grunts of effort that he would be embarrassed by if Brian didn’t seem to like it so damn much.

There are, honestly, a lot of things he might be embarrassed by if Brian didn’t seem to like them so damn much. Like the way his breathing turns to ragged panting gasps when he’s close to coming, or how his face and back get all sweaty, or how he _worries_ and frets and has a thousand little hangups — but Brian pushes Pat’s hair behind his ear and looks up at him and says, in a breathy stream of consciousness, “Pat, fuck, look at you, god, you’re so fucking beautiful like this, _fuck_, please, can I touch myself, I want to come —”

“I’ll do you one better,” Pat manages to get out, and shifts as best he can to one hand so his other is free to jerk Brian off. Brian _whines_ when Pat touches his cock, a keen of desperation; for his part, he compensates for Pat’s impaired balance by fucking himself on Pat’s cock, frantic irregular movements as Pat drives Brian to the edge and Brian rides Pat there in return. Pat bites out a string of curses as he tries to focus on what he’s doing while his mind starts to short-circuit —

but then Brian comes with a shout, a wordless sound of pleasure, and he tightens around Pat and Pat drops his head and clutches tight at the sheets and thrusts into him, again, again, _again_, chasing — needing — _fuck_ — 

Pat’s always dead silent when he comes, as if he forgets how to even so much as make sound, just shuddery gasping breaths as heat courses through him, down to his bones, and he squeezes his eyes shut against the overwhelm of it, twitching through the aftershocks, leaning into it ‘till it aches and he truly can’t take it anymore.

He blinks his eyes open and finds himself looking directly into Brian’s eyes. Brian is smiling, easy and content, looking up at him from beneath heavy eyelids, so _fucking_ pretty.

“Gosh, I love you,” Brian says, and reaches out to stroke his thumb over Pat’s cheek.

“I love you too,” says Pat, leaning into the touch for a moment before he — regrettably — has to move away so they can clean up.

“You’re so silly,” Brian says, fondly, watching Pat move gingerly, carefully, trying not to touch anything overmuch. “It’s perfectly normal. Natural. You don’t even have to wash your hands eighty times afterwards, really, I promise,” he adds, leaning on the bathroom counter.

“Alright, eighty-one it is,” Pat says, faux-grouchy. “I just have to. Unless I shower. You wanna participate?”

“Oh, do I ever!” Brian says, and tilts his chin up to kiss Pat, light and sweet. Pat smiles, and turns to wash his hands anyway, because that’s where he’s at, at this point, currently, in his life. “Honestly? It’s cute, really. And smart. Never hurts to be fastidious with this sort of thing.”

“Thank you. I think so too. If I’ve gotta be weird about something, it’s not bad for it to be hygiene.”

“It’s not weird. I think it’s fair. I’m sorry for teasing.”

“No, it’s okay, I think I can handle a little light ribbing,” Pat says, with a little smile.

“Or light rimming.”

“That wasn’t even a pun!”

“I tried, and therefore you can’t criticize me.”

“I really think I can,” Pat says, and Brian sticks his tongue out at him.

“You’re not so squeamish when it’s your ass,” Brian says, thoughtful again, returning to the conversation like they hadn’t broken off into teasing, and punctuates this observation with a helpful smack to the ass in question. He turns on the shower and sticks his hand under it to test the temperature.

“Well, I’ve had this ass my whole life,” Pat says, following Brian into the shower. Brian snorts. “I dunno, it doesn’t make sense. Maybe it comes down to a lack of experience. My ex fiance —”

“Your _what_.”

Pat stutters for a good several seconds, and finally lands on, “I forgot I hadn’t told you,” a little strangled.

“Oh my god, Pat, no, it’s okay! Don’t make that scared face,” Brian says, cupping Pat’s face in his hands. “I was just surprised! I had no idea.”

“I was gonna tell you — shit, I think that night before we got together, but I think the topic wandered off and I felt super fucking awkward pursuing it, especially in front of your roommates.”

“Ooh, yeah, that’s fair. You can tell me more later, you don’t gotta get into it now. I wanna know your sexy secrets, what were you gonna say before I interrupted you?”

“Oh, uh. I was gonna say — shit, what were we even talking about?”

“Your ass, I think,” Brian says, and Pat laughs.

“Right. Uh, my ex was a trans guy, and that was sort of my longest and most serious relationship, and he wasn’t really into that —” A vague handwave to express what he means, which seems to thoroughly amuse Brian. “— and I really wasn’t having a ton of sex before that, so it was experiment with my own self or nothing. And, honestly, I didn’t do a whole lot of that either. Still don’t. I don’t worry about it so much when you’re fucking me ‘cause it’s not like it’s my hands or my dick. Don’t gotta worry about it if I don’t do it, right? And before you give me the sex ed lecture, I _know_, I know, I’ve done my fuckin’ research, I just can’t do it.”

“Hey, that’s fair. That’s totally okay,” Brian says, wrapping his arms loosely around Pat’s waist. “Nothing wrong with that. I’m not gonna push you into doing anything you’re not comfortable with.” He drops a kiss on Pat’s shoulder, then looks up at him through stringy wet hair. Pat smiles despite himself and pushes it out of his face. “It makes sense, honestly! I dated someone once who told me they used to be super weirded out to even touch their own come for a super long time, same deal, gotta go wash their hands a zillion times, or get off in the shower so they wouldn’t have to. Sucks what sort of hangups we get when it’s taboo to experiment, huh?”

“Tell me about it,” Pat grunts, nudging Brian out of the way so he can get more under the water. “Love to be in abstinence-only sex ed and, I dunno, think your dick’s gonna fall off if you touch it too enthusiastically, or something.”

“Ugh. Good thing it didn’t,” Brian says, and flutters his eyelashes at Pat, who breaks into helpless laughter.

“You’re a fiend. I love you so _much_.”

“I love you so much!” Brian says, delighted. Pat wonders if they’ll ever stop echoing it back and forth with enthusiasm. He kind of hopes not. He kisses Brian, just once, but Brian doesn’t do things halfway. Brian kisses him back, his mouth hard and wanting, as if he didn’t just get off. He tastes like salt and shower water and it’s _good_, gets Pat breathless again.

“Christ, Brian, I’m not sure I’m gonna make it another round,” Pat says, remorsefully.

“Eh. Drink some water and have a snack and we’ll see where you’re at in a half-hour,” Brian says, his lips quirking into that half-smile, the one that means Pat is absolutely in for it.

“Oh my god.”

“Would you consider, at least, sucking my dick, if I’m up for it?” He winks, to emphasize his terrible double entendre.

“You are impossible. How does anyone have this much energy _ever_. Yes, I will suck your dick, because you are the hottest person I have ever met in my whole life and I cannot believe you keep me in your bed and also I nearly always kind of want to anyway.”

“Don’t speak so low of yourself, Pat Gill, you’re gorgeous. Also, I’m madly in love with you.”

“Wow. Okay. Maybe I should keep doing it so you keep telling me you love me.”

“Nooo! No, Pat, you dork, I love you so much, you are not allowed to say mean things about yourself _any more_ because I love you and also because I said so!”

“Oh, okay.” Pat kisses the tip of Brian’s nose. “I love you. So alright, if you say so.”

“Good.” Brian hugs him tighter, nuzzles his face against Pat’s chest. Pat rests his cheek against Brian’s hair, and lets the desperate, terrifying, _beautiful_ feeling of loving someone so hard it hurts wash over himself, right alongside the hot water.

Brian holds him, keeps him close, like he knows Pat would like to hide himself inside Brian so thoroughly that they become indistinguishable, like he knows that Pat feels a little bit like he ripped his own heart out of his chest and offered it still beating to Brian, like the only way Brian could possibly react is to hold it as gentle and careful and tender as he can, like he wants to keep Pat in his arms forever and not let go, simply because he likes to have him there. Because he loves him. Because maybe he feels the same way that Pat is feeling, right now.

“I love you,” Pat whispers into his hair.

“I love you,” Brian whispers back against Pat’s skin.

They stay there, holding each other, until the hot water runs out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that shoulder touch (imagining the way pat must have felt when he put his hand on brian's back) is literally no joke the moment that got me writing fic. like, sotc got me reading, but that got me writing LOL


	13. XIII.

From: Tara Long

Subject: Black Mesa Presentation!

To: Polygon Staff

Morning everyone,

Exciting news! We updated our Youtube channel for the first time in 3 years, with the video of Pat and Brian’s presentation. Check it out if you have a chance. They did a fantastic job. Thanks to Simone for filming and editing!

http://you.tube/polygon

Tara Long, PhD  
Executive Director, Polygon  
(111) 222-3344 / tlong@polygon.sci  
890 Address St., NYC / http://polygon.sci

Allegra  
  
Hey did you see this you’re in a caption  
  
Sent file: CAPTURE.png  
  


> Dr. Patrick Gill and Dr. Brian Gilbert (pictured above) present their findings on Xenite. Gilbert, a Johns Hopkins graduate, is 25; he and Gill are poised to become leading experts in their field.

I don’t know what I expected  
  
LOL  
  
SORRY BUD THEY DIDNT EVEN SAY YOUR SCHOOL OR ANYTHING  
  
I’m hardly even in the picture  
  
It’s ok Brian’s a star. I don’t mind  
  
BLEEHHHH stop being so sweet its giving me cavities  
  


It seems like most of Pat’s big decisions, lately, have been made while curled up in bed with Brian, usually at night after work. Tonight, Brian comes over after dinner, when Pat’s already in pajamas and sitting on his bed. The TV is on in the background playing a sitcom rerun, and Pat is staring blankly at it, trying not to stress the fuck out.

“Uh, hey,” says Brian, opening the bedroom door. Pat startles. “Oh, gosh, sorry, your roommate let me in, I didn’t mean to surprise you. What’s going on?” He crosses the room to Pat, lets the door fall closed behind himself.

“Stressing,” Pat says. “As usual.”

“I feel that,” Brian says, and bellyflops onto the blankets next to him. Pat settles a hand at the small of his back. “Do you ever think about moving out of the city?”

Pat’s heart fucking skips a beat. “What do you mean,” he says, carefully.

“I mean, like, it’s goddamn expensive to live here. Do you think you’ll, like, I dunno, do you think you’ll ever leave? Get a teaching position somewhere or something? Transfer to Black Mesa to work closer on this project?”

“Hi, Brian, nice to see you too, you’ve been here all of two minutes and you’re cutting right to this? What’s going on?”

Brian heaves a deep sigh and rolls over onto his back; Pat’s hand stays in the same place, resting on his belly, just below his ribs. “I don’t know,” says Brian, who could not be more obviously lying.

So Pat answers the question. “I couldn’t say, Brian. I don’t know what my future’s got in it. I’m not planning on leaving, and especially not anytime soon, but shit changes all the time. But if I wanted to teach, I would’ve gone straight for that. By which I mean, no way in hell am I turning into a professor, unless it’s a last resort.”

Brian exhales a short laugh, at that. “Fair enough. Academia is bullshit. I’m saving that for when I’m old.” He doesn’t elaborate.

Pat looks down at him. He’s contemplating some dimension past Pat’s ceiling, not looking at Pat. Pat slides his hand under Brian’s shirt, to rest on his skin in the same place it just was, to feel the rise and fall of his breathing. Brian’s eyes close for a moment, the very faintest ghost of a smile flickering across his face.

“Jonah’s moving out,” he says, finally.

“Where’s he going?”

“Not far. He’s, uh. Moving in with his partner, I guess. Taking that next step or something? Hah. It’s. It’s gonna be weird. We’ve lived together for _years_. And now, fuck, Laura and I are gonna have to go apartment hunting because we super can’t afford a three-bedroom between the two of us, and wouldn’t need the third one anyway, and — fuck.”

“Did he just tell you?”

“Yeah, right before I left.”

“Shit,” Pat says. “I, um. It’s funny you should say that, though?”

Brian looks at him, raises an eyebrow.

“‘Tis the season, it seems,” Pat says lightly, “because the reason I was all stressed when you got here is that my roommate told me not a half-hour ago that he’s moving in with someone — well, I dunno exactly, but someone that he has more of a relationship with than ‘the sad old dude who lives in my apartment, not Charles, the other one.’”

Brian snorts. “You’re not old.”

“Whatever. My point is… my point is, uh, I guess, is that I was trying to psych myself up for asking you if you’d ever consider moving in with — with me, but I didn’t think — I was pretty sure there was no fuckin’ way you were gonna split with your roommate situation. But. As much as that sucks, that he’s moving out, it’s — it’s not bad timing, all things considered.”

“No, Pat Gill,” Brian says, putting his hand over Pat’s, the fabric of his shirt separating their hands. “I would even go so far as to say, it’s pretty good timing.”

Pat chews on his lip. “So, I suppose — would you consider moving in with me? It could — I mean, like, you wouldn’t even necessarily have to do any apartment hunting — and I assume Laura would probably — and that you and I would probably share a room — so she could have the other room, if she wanted — am I assuming too much, holy shit, what is that look on your face?”

Brian launches himself upwards and kisses Pat. “Baby, you solved all my problems all at once, you’re a goddamn _miracle_. I was afraid I was gonna have to, like — gosh, I don’t even know, I was catastrophizing again, like oh god what if I have to move somewhere _far_ cause I can’t afford here, and this is my dream job and I’ve got coworkers who I care about and care about me and Tara’s the best friggin’ boss and I love living here and most of all _you’re_ here and I love you and I don’t want to be anywhere else!”

Pat wraps his arms around Brian, pulls him into his lap and hugs him tight. “I love you too. You’re stuck with me, sorry.”

Brian _siiighs_ and presses closer against Pat. “I was so hoping you’d say that.”

“Hey, c’mon, of course. We’re a team, yeah? We figure shit out together. Work shit, gay shit, it’s all both of us. We don’t have to go it alone.”

He can hear Brian’s smile in his voice, even if he can’t see his face. “Yeah. We make a good team. I’m really glad Tara put us together on this project.”

Pat laughs. “Me the fuck too.” He kisses Brian’s head and Brian tilts his chin up to kiss Pat properly, slow and lingering. “D’you wanna talk to Laura, see if she’s on board?”

“Hell yes! Let me — I’ll text her,” Brian says, and Pat wraps himself around him, rests his head on Brian’s shoulder to be nosy and read his texts over his shoulder. Brian pats his cheek.

Laura  
  
HEY SO U WILL NEVER GUESS WHAT  
  
I’m sure I won’t  
  
What’s up  
  
pat’s roommate is ALSO moving out and long story short he asked if we want to move in w him !!!! since he and i would be sharing a bedroom you could take the other room and stuff  
  
obv we can work out logistics at a later date but i figured i should ask you asap so if youre down with it you don’t have to be at home stressedly looking at apartments lol  
  
no pressure to decide now ofc!! just throwing it out there  
  
That is so wild??  
  
Are you sure he’s cool w it? Not everyone wants to live with their bfs sister LOL  
  
he was more worried that you wouldnt be cool with it haha  
  
Well he’s over here often enough that he’s basically an honorary roommate already, if I wasn’t cool with it you’d know by now :P  
  
No that sounds really good, tell him thank you  
  
Next time he’s over we can talk about it more comprehensively?  
  
pat’s response is as follows: “ :D ”   
  
we’ll be over tomorrow so if you’re around we can talk!!  
  
:thumbsup: :thumbsup:  
  


It comes to pass, then, that they recruit their friends for a Saturday of moving. Pat had dropped a message in the off-topic channel in the work chat, to see if anyone might be free, and had found more volunteers than he was expecting. The usual suspects are there — Allegra, Simone, Jenna — but Jeff and Clayton, too, plus Jonah, which perhaps makes for too many chefs in the kitchen, so to speak.

With so much extra help, it takes a lot less time than they had planned to get everything to Pat’s apartment — well, his and Brian’s and Laura’s apartment, now — so they figure they might as well take advantage of all the hands on deck to get some unpacking done.

Simone complains loudly as she tries to put together an Ikea something-or-other, and Laura plops onto the ground to help her figure it out. Pat decides to clear out before they start yelling at each other instead of the inanimate object. He’d done some cursory tidying of his room — picked his laundry up off the floor and washed his depression mug collection and even halfheartedly vacuumed — but he is now beginning to realize that he has done nothing to make it so that Brian’s things can consolidate with his, and there is a not-insubstantial stack of boxes on the floor of the bedroom.

Brian is sitting on the edge of Pat’s bed — no — _their_ bed — and is rummaging through a box. Charles is watching warily from the windowsill; Pat suspects he’s not a fan of the commotion. He also suspects that he won’t love it when they let Zuko leave Laura’s room, but they’ll figure it out. Hopefully they’ll get along. Or at least cohabitate peacefully.

Brian looks up at Pat and smiles at him. “Hey, how much of your shit can I move around?”

“Uh, any of it, I guess? I don’t really care what you get into. Sorry, I didn’t, like, actually have any forethought about this part,” Pat says.

“No, you’re fine! I think Simone was trying to put my drawers back together, so we can probably rearrange a little and stick that in the corner and that’ll cover most of it, and with some finagling I’m sure we can make the closet space work. If that’s okay?”

“Of course.” Pat goes to him, kisses the top of his head. “Do you want my help in here, or should I go back and make sure Laura and Simone haven’t murdered each other over Ikea instructions?”

“If you don’t mind, I could really use a hand moving your dresser. I could do it by myself if I took all the stuff out, but I doubt you want that.”

“Not especially,” Pat says, as Brian hops to his feet. “I don’t super want to end up with my underwear thrown all over the room when everyone I know is in my home.”

Through some sweating, and some swearing, and miraculously only one stubbed toe, they rearrange the majority of the room. The bed is in the far corner, now, with the little nightstand-drawers next to it, and Pat’s dresser has been relocated to the foot of the bed. There’s indents in the carpet where it used to stand. The desk is to the left of the door, and there’s a clear span of wall now for whatever Brian’s going to set up.

The racket from the living room is increasing in volume, and Pat winces at a loud clatter.

“I’m gonna make sure they’re not tearing the place apart,” Pat says.

“Good plan,” Brian says, and steals a quick kiss.

“Don’t worry about moving my stuff around. If you were worried, anyway. As long as one of us knows where anything is, I think we’ll be alright,” Pat says. Brian grins and gives him a thumbs-up, before diving back into the box he was rummaging through before.

The living room is a scene of outright chaos. Most of the common-area furniture in the other apartment belonged to Brian and Laura, and most of it here was Pat’s roommate’s, so they are in the process of interior designing and also trying to put everything back together the right way. The trouble is, everyone seems to have a conflicting vision, and also, the instructions for everything are long gone.

“What is going on out here?” Pat says, and everyone stops in their tracks to look at him.

It is almost comical; it’s like someone pressed a pause button. Simone and Laura are both on the floor, surrounded by parts of what Pat assumes is Brian’s chest of drawers. Allegra is in the middle of the room, perhaps directing traffic; Clayton, Jeff, Jenna, and Jonah appear to be the traffic directed, because the former two have their hands on the couch like they’re about to move it, and Jenna and Jonah are presiding over an armchair apiece.

“Okay, I wasn’t that worried, but now I am. What are you up to?”

“Not breaking anything,” Simone says, and Pat raises his eyebrows. “I mean, okay, we knocked this whole thing over and it fell apart but that’s ‘cause we hadn’t put the screws in yet, everything’s _fine_, and Allegra’s got a vision.”

“A vision?” he says, turning to Allegra.

“Yeah, you need a more welcoming space, Patrick. You’ve got actual furniture now, not just a sad loveseat!”

“Alright, okay, I trust you,” he concedes. “Don’t work these poor nerds too hard. Laura, do you want me to help Simone instead so you can, like, start on your room?”

“Oh yeah,” says Laura, like this has only just now occurred to her. “I might need someone’s help moving my bed?”

“Here, Simone, I’ll do this myself, actually,” Pat says, hoping to delegate them to a task they’re both more suited to, “if you’d rather help Laura.”

“Okay!” Simone says cheerfully, and hops to her feet to follow Laura down the hall.

Pat spends a lot less time yelling at the pieces than they did, and more time trying to patiently figure it out, so it doesn’t take him too terribly long to get it rebuilt. Or, at least, the living room crew hasn’t been dismissed from attempting to realize Allegra’s creative vision yet, so that must count for something. He hauls the drawers off to the bedroom; Brian pokes his head out from where he’s rummaging around in the closet at the sound of Pat entering the room, which strikes Pat as funnier than it maybe should be.

“Get outta there,” Pat says, teasing, and Brian sticks his tongue out at him before jumping out from between the shirts with drama.

“Surprise! I’m bi! Bet you couldn’t guess!” Brian says, flinging his arms wide. Pat laughs and goes to him, cups his face in his hands and kisses him. Brian’s hands settle on Pat’s back.

“What a surprise,” Pat murmurs, his mouth close to his. “I’m gay. We should date.”

“Mm. Okay,” Brian says, and kisses him again.

Before they can get too distracted, Pat steps away and gestures grandly at the product of his construction efforts. Brian applauds.

“Thank you, you’re very talented. Now I can store all my personal items,” Brian says, with a highly unnecessary wink.

“Oh my god. I’ve got a drawer you can share already, anyway,” Pat says, and Brian cackles.

“I know. I found all your secrets.”

“What!”

“You gave me permission!”

“Yeah, I guess I did. I should’ve known you’d use that to snoop, you imp.”

Brian leans in close, as if to kiss him, but only grins.

“Ah, whatever, I don’t care, it’s not like I could even hide any secrets from you if I tried.”

“Your secrets are safe with _meee_,” Brian says, singsonging the last word as he swishes off to investigate Pat’s work. “Is my desk out there? Or are we sharing a desk? Or — what happened to it?”

“I think it’s out there? I hope Allegra hasn’t incorporated it into the living room decor; I do kind of enjoy having a desk of my own. I was thinking we could put that in the corner, facing the door, and then put your desk next to it?”

Brian squints thoughtfully as he looks around, visualizing, and nods. “That works. Let’s go rescue everyone from whatever they’ve gotten themselves into out there?”

“Oh, god, yeah, they probably need it.”

Brian laughs and leads the way out of their room. Pat hadn’t been paying a ton of attention when he was out here before, too focused on his own project, but by now everything seems to be mostly in order. Lo and behold, it’s actually starting to look like a place people might live in.

Brian’s desk is pushed up against the wall; his old bed is leaning against it. Pat supposes they’ll have to do something about that, at some point. But Jenna is hanging up a weird painting of a blue chair and Allegra is sprawled dramatically on the couch and Jonah and Clayton are sitting at the table chatting and Jeff is collapsed in an armchair and the TV is on some cooking show with the volume off and it looks more like — well, more like a _home_ than it ever has.

It does a funny thing to Pat’s chest. He likes it.

* * *

“Patrick,” Brian whines, and gently puts his head down on his notebook, “we have so much _research_. Why did we do this?”

“Gosh, if research is your issue, I think you need to reevaluate your entire string of life choices to this point.”

“We have so much _data_, though.”

“Well, right now we’re looking at your own shit, so you really only have yourself to blame.”

Brian huffs in exaggerated exasperation; it blows some strands of hair out of place, and he narrows his eyes as they fall into his face. He pushes his hands back through his hair and side-eyes Pat, who is watching with amusement.

“I think your hair’s almost longer than mine now,” Pat idly notes. He’d reach out and run his hand through it, if he wasn’t in the office, but he’s not that brazen.

“I can’t decide if I should cut it all off, or keep going and become a _Castlevania_ character,” Brian says.

“I think it looks nice either way,” Pat says, and Brian smiles.

“I’m gonna take a break, I think, my brain is fried. Might grab a snack? I kind of want to stretch my legs a little. You want anything?”

“Nah — oh, wait, actually, I’m out of coffee. Would you be a dear?”

“‘Course, dear,” Brian says, and beams when Pat blushes.

Pat picks up the notebook as Brian walks away. Brian’s handwriting here — a distracted, frantic scrawl — is no worse than Pat’s ordinary scribbles, so he can usually decipher it well enough. He hasn’t spent a ton of time looking at these particular notes on his own; usually, he’s reading over Brian’s shoulder as they pore over it together.

He flips through it, curious. It would be funny, if it hadn’t been so awful, the way his notetaking changes with each new dated entry. The first chunk of pages are cleanly written, neatly organized, charts carefully drawn out, research questions thoroughly detailed and hypotheses expounded upon. He finds the notes from the night they spent in the lab together; his own handwriting appears in the margins, scribbled equations angled from where he was sitting in relation to Brian.

As Pat turns the pages, the painstaking deliberation gives way to cramped, smudged handwriting. Complete sentences start to lose unnecessary articles, and then become increasingly fragmented until it’s really just concepts cobbled together in something only loosely claiming coherency.

The last several pages are sketchy, scribbly diagrams, only comprehensible to someone who actually intimately knows what the fuck he’s talking about — which means Pat can only barely get the gist. Half-formed sentences trail off into each other, as he thinks light-years faster than he can write. He remembers Brain’s face that last day, angry and then blank and then empty and then so, so fucking exhausted.

He flips halfway back to the start. He doesn’t want to think about that.

The notes in this section are dense, but complete. Like he hasn’t yet gotten too carried away to forget his notetaking skills. Pat is appreciative, for once, of the drilled-in academic habits that live in all of them as he reads through what’s on the page.

> _This is a bit subjective, but: I have noticed while working, time seems to slip away from me. This has been increasingly the case for the past few weeks. I note this because I have discovered that it is well past the time for me to be done for the day, and I can afford to take some personal notes. When Pat is around, he seems to keep better track, but not always. He seems less swept up in things in general. Is it his personality? Hard to tell. He’s very calm, though, generally speaking. Certainly he seems plenty dedicated; I’d never expect anyone else to work the same hours I’ve been pulling lately. It’s just hard to stop. And when I do stop, I don’t keep the same momentum: if I don’t work at all over the weekend, I spend half of Monday trying to get into the groove again. As a point of note, I rarely find myself staying late on those days._

A few pages later:

> _After taking the week off, Patrick and I have returned to the lab. My notes previously mentioning the troubles keeping track of time have remained relevant; he has taken to setting an alarm for lunch. I swear there are times it doesn’t actually go off, even though I watch him set it every day. It seemed like when we first came back, it wasn’t so bad, but now I’m almost always leaving hours late._

And:

> _I’ve been working in the lab alone lately as Pat works on reports and lab write-ups. I’ve had more opportunity to run the tests I want to run. People don’t typically bother me; the other projects are in different stages currently, so I have free roam of the lab. The next page will contain my full process. In the meantime, I may as well fill this space with other less-scientific observations and notes. I’ve hardly been able to sleep lately, for thinking about this; it’s easier to stay here and work, since I know I won’t be sleeping anyway. Tara changed the permissions on the lock, but if I’m already in the lab, it’s not like it can kick me out. So I stay. I’m so close, I know I am. I can almost feel the solution, like it’s calling to me. With the process I detail on the next page, there is little to no doubt that I will be able to confirm my hypothesis. Xenium is the key to creating dimensional rifts. I’ve seen the start of it. I intend to see it through._

Pat’s eyebrows knit as he frowns. He flips backwards through a chunk of pages, finds another of Brian’s asides.

> _This may seem weird, but I almost seem drawn to the lab when I’m not there. I dream about the glow of the crystals. I can nearly see the light when I close my eyes._

Even earlier:

> _I’ve taken to working weekends. I’m not strictly supposed to (though neither am I prohibited) but it’s so easy to get swept up in things. It’s more interesting than any project I’ve ever been assigned to; it feels cosmically important in a strange way. I’ve never had the chance to work firsthand with the samples we are studying here. I barely even knew such a thing existed outside of theory before this. Polygon is really lucky to have been granted permission to spearhead this research. I have been working tirelessly to prove that I am up to the task. I don’t want to let anyone down, especially not Patrick or Tara. On top of that, I feel increasingly drawn to the subject the longer I spend in the lab. I feel as though we have something incredibly important here._   
_But I digress; below are my most notable results of the day._

“Huh,” Pat says, quietly, to himself.

“What?” says Brian, from behind him. Pat startles, having been so caught up in reading that he didn’t hear him approach.

“How much more time would you say you spent in the lab than I did, in those first couple weeks?”

“Oh, gosh,” Brian says. He pulls a face as he sits, hands Pat his coffee. “It was, like, one of the first weeks when you left to go hang out with Allegra, right? I remember you were running late, and I told you I’d pack up. I, uh, I didn’t, and I stayed there until about ten, and then — if I recall correctly — I’m pretty sure I pulled twelve-hour days both Saturday and Sunday. I was trying really hard to impress you,” Brian says, with a guilty smile.

“Man, you were already impressing me fuckin’ constantly, I don’t know why you worked so hard.” Pat shakes his head, fondly. “Goddamn upstart. Did you keep doing that?”

“I mean, yeah. You witnessed it directly at least once. But I was there every weekend, until Tara locked it. And even then, by the end of it, I’d sometimes pack snacks and whatever and prop the door if I needed to leave the room, stay over at least through Saturday, if not Sunday too. I’d always go home Sunday night — definitely didn’t need anyone catching me in the lab asleep Monday morning, hah, I knew there’d be hell to pay for that — but, uh, but yeah.”

“Christ, Brian.”

“Yeah. It was pretty fucked.”

“So you were probably spending — what — at least a third more time than I was in the lab at first? And with the, like, with the real concentrated shit or whatever too, right?”

“Yeah. I mean, not at first. The night I called you in was the first time I was doing anything with the samples we weren’t given explicit permission to study. But, yeah, it did end up that way. I wanted to get ahead.”

“And then you couldn’t step back.”

“Yeah. We knew this, why are you —?”

“I was looking at your notes. I know we all sort of assumed that it was exposure to the crystals that was making shit weird, and I definitely think that’s on the right track, but we didn’t have a lot of data and I wanted to look into it more carefully, in case it wasn’t. But you have some notes about your subjective experience, and everything’s got dates and times and stuff, which is really fuckin’ helpful, because that makes things a little more solid.”

“Well, what kind of researcher would I be if I didn’t note-take the fuck out of everything?” Brian says, half-joking.

“Hah. Exactly. So like, okay, I definitely felt the shit you were feeling to some extent — I was losing track of time in the lab in a big way, and losing sleep over it. But then I was pulled to spend more time writing, and you were already spending way more time than you should have been in there and then you had it all to yourself, with free run of the equipment and no one to help keep track of time, keep you in check, keep you grounded. No wonder you got so swept away. It seems to me, though, that if there was a larger team — with careful supervision, with extremely limited lab time, with external help — I’m thinking that if we’re real cautious and responsible, and everyone keeps an eye on everyone, we might be able to start lab work on this again. Tentatively. Maybe.”

Brian blinks at him, surprised.

“I mean, of course we’d need Tara’s permission. But, like, if we were on some sort of rotation, and there were always more than two people in the lab, and people outside the lab made sure we stopped when we needed to — I dunno. All I’m saying is, I think that there might be a chance that we could do this safely, if we took the right precautions.”

“Holy shit,” says Brian. He pauses, then looks away; he fiddles with the lid of his coffee cup. “I — that’s really good. I think that’s great. I’d love to get back into the lab — I’m worried I’m _too_ excited to get back into the lab. I don’t want — _that_ — to happen again. What if I’m not stable enough to do this? What if I get back into the lab and snap right back into where I was? I don’t want that to happen to me again, Pat. It was _awful_.”

“Then we’ll figure it out. It won’t be just you alone. It won’t even be just the two of us. If you’re worried you’ll try to sneak back in, you can ask Tara to keep you off the lab permissions so you can only get in with someone else there. If she even lets either of us back on in the first place. And I’ll personally make sure you leave on time, alright?” Pat says. He wiggles his eyebrows at Brian, to get him to laugh. “Tara’s smart, I’m sure she’ll have even better ideas about what we can do to make sure you never have to feel like that again.”

Brian’s eyes go wide. “Wait, what if she doesn’t let me work on it in the lab at all?”

“Then you’ll be stuck writing reports like I was. Or something. Whatever happens, it’s not like you’re getting moved off the project. You’re the reason we know so much about all this. If she’s kept you so far, she won’t move you now. Especially since we have more solid data about this stuff,” Pat says, tapping his fingers on the notebook.

“I wouldn’t say my qualitative notes are exactly what anyone would call solid data,” Brian says, doubtfully.

“Well, it’s what we’ve got. It aligns with everything else I’ve seen written on the subject, and it’s a reasonable starting point. Have you seen the difference between the notes at the beginning versus the end? It’s like two different people. Plus, if we run structured, controlled lab time, we can keep notes on everyone’s experiences and everything. We can be so goddamn responsible about lab safety that everyone will be stunned.”

“Okay. Yeah. That’s… that’s a really good thought. Can we talk to Tara about it?”

“Of course. I think she said she was heading out early today, so we should wait ‘till tomorrow. Let’s pull the stuff I found and put it together to show her in the morning, yeah?”

Brian nods. “Thank you, Pat. I —” He pauses, takes a steadying breath. “I was sort of — back to thinking it was all just me. And maybe to some extent it is. Maybe I’m more susceptible, for whatever reason. Or maybe it’s ‘cause I’m a terrible workaholic. Or maybe you’re right, and it is because I was spending so much time around Xenium. I don’t know. But. I’m really — I — thank you, for looking out for me like this. This whole thing has meant a lot to me from the start. I’m — I’m hopeful, to think we might be able to keep working on it, in the future.”

“Me too,” Pat says. He reaches out and puts his hand over Brian’s, where it rests on the table. “I’m glad we’re in this together. I love you, and I love working with you. You’re brilliant, and I can’t wait to see everything you do.”

Brian hesitates for half a moment before throwing his arms around Pat and hugging him tight. “I love you so much. Thank you. For understanding. For not giving up on me. Thank you.”

“Of course, Brian,” Pat says softly. “Of course.”

“No hugging in the computer lab!” says Simone, from a distance.

“Shut the fuck up, we’re having a moment!” Brian yells back. The only response is her laughter.

* * *

Pat, Clayton, and Brian are all three bearing witness as Tara curses under her breath at the electronic lock to the lab. Pat leans against the wall, watching Clayton squint at the instructions and try to guide her through the process of changing the permissions; Brian stands next to Pat, looking like he’s mostly just trying to stay out of the way.

“Okay, shit, there we go,” Tara says. “Brian, are you sure you don’t want me to put you back in? I don’t mind. I’m giving Pat permission again.”

“No, it’s okay, I’d rather you didn’t. If I need to get in, I’ll be with someone else anyway, so it won’t cause any inconvenience,” Brian says. He’s been very insistent, despite Tara’s attempts to communicate to Brian that no, really, she does trust him, but he won’t budge. Pat is a little sad to hear how little faith Brian has in his own ability to restrain himself, to think of how out of control he must have felt to continue to feel this way so strongly.

Tara shrugs and lets it be. Pat watches as she scrolls through menus, setting everything back to a modified version of normal. She grins triumphantly when she gets everything situated, opens the door to the lab with a flourish, and lets them in.

“We can go over your tasks now, and then tomorrow y’all can start bringing people in and training them. Since we’re gonna be rotating teams now, I might have the three of you trade off on training? Then, once everyone’s on the same page, we can work out actual teams. Karen and Petrana are going to hop in — I’m glad to finally get them into the lab, they’ve been waiting for ages for an opportunity — and we’re looking at some applications for some new people, too, so that might account for a good chunk of your time for a while.” She drums her fingers on her chin, thinking. “Any questions?”

None are posed, so Tara pulls out her tablet and they crowd around her to peer at the schedule she’s made. It’s very clear-cut: the lab is open three hours a day, nine to noon, that’s it, full stop. No more. Less if necessary.

And then things get… weirdly normal.

It’s hardly a week before everyone’s up to speed on what they need to know — it’s not new for most of them, and Karen and Petrana have lab experience from school. They go in groups, now, in the mornings; once everyone’s there and gets themselves together (and this usually might, possibly, be Pat causing the holdup), they make their way to the lab.

Tara takes pity, or something, on Pat and Brian, and starts scheduling them together. They both prefer it that way; they work best together, and they can keep an eye on each other, and they can avoid flirting in front of their coworkers so carefully that it doubles back around and everything sounds flirtatious. Pat hopes people don’t notice, but he hopes in vain; he walks over to sit with Karen and Simone at lunch one day and Karen is in the middle of talking.

“It’s so silly, it’s like —” She clears her throat, artificially deepens her voice. “— Brian oh uh oops I mean uh Dr. Gilbert can you, uh, pass me your notebook, if you my friend would be so kind —”

“I do not sound like that,” Pat huffs, dropping into the seat next to her. Karen goes bright pink and Simone _cackles_. In actuality, he’s trying not to laugh, but he can hold a decent poker face for a few seconds, enough to raise his eyebrows at Karen, and then both of them burst into giggles too.

“Fandom secret? Everyone thinks it’s kinda cute,” Simone stage-whispers, cupping her hand by her mouth as if she were actually telling a secret.

Now Pat’s face blooms red, he’s sure of it. He opens his mouth to say something, but Karen speaks instead.

“Yeah, it’s a little like you’re — like — have you ever had two professors in your department who were married?”

“What — !”

“It’s like that, y’know, where whenever you see them interact you think it’s sweet ‘cause you know they’re together, even though they’re being professional and teaching or whatever. Except neither of you are actually teaching, just being bossy in the lab.”

“I am not —”

“You are,” says Brian, from behind Pat. “I’m worse, though.”

“When will everyone stop ganging up on me?”

“Never,” says Simone, happily, and goes back to her lunch.

“I’m reporting all of you for bullying,” Pat grouses. Brian laughs at him. “You, especially.”

“Eat your lunch, Patrick,” Brian says. Pat only barely has the self-control not to roll his eyes at him.

When they’re not in the lab, they’re writing. Everyone writes a short daily report — qualitative and quantitative — about their experience in the lab that day, and submits it to Pat and Brian. Brian takes the numbers, Pat takes the experiences, and together they begin to cobble it into something resembling order.

“I have bad news,” says Pat, scrolling through his notes. Brian’s head jerks up from what he’s looking at, immediately at attention. “I think we might have to write a book.”

“Don’t scare me like that, Pat Gill!”

“I think that’s plenty scary. Look how much shit we’ve got. There’s no fuckin’ way they’ll run this as an article. We might as well go all out and make it a book. You think Black Mesa will take it?”

Brian sighs. “I’ll look into it.” But then he smiles, and adds, “I was sorta hoping it might come to this. I think we could split it into two parts, lead with the qualitative data and methods for effective and healthy research, and then in the second half —”

“Good Lord. I should’ve known,” Pat says, and Brian laughs.

Pat does, occasionally, have a shift in the lab sans Brian. On one such morning, he sleepily trudges down the hallway, flanked by a much chattier crowd of Jenna, Allegra, Simone, and Petrana. Someone’s already standing by the door, back to the approaching group. For a confused moment Pat thinks it’s Brian, who he’d just left in the computer lab — the hair is nearly the same — but then the person turns at the sound of people approaching and after a double take of _wait, okay — yep, alright, that definitely isn’t Brian_, Pat realizes it’s the guy from Black Mesa.

“Thomas! What are you doing here?” Allegra says, and Thomas gives a shy smile.

“It’s postdoc time for me,” he says, and Allegra hurries over to unlock the door before Pat can even get to it.

“That’s so awesome, oh my god, see we _told _you to apply!” Allegra says. She flings the door open and catches it on her shoulder, holds it open for everyone else. “Oh, I guess maybe everyone else should, like, be introduced. Wait. Everyone but Petrana was at the Black Mesa thing.”

“Bold of you to think I’ve ever been able to remember anyone’s face in my life,” Pat says.

“You don’t remember Thomas?”

“I _do_, but that’s because he looks like Brian,” Pat says, and Allegra rolls her eyes.

“I don’t think we’ve met?” Simone says.

“I’m sure you were having other, very important conversations,” Pat assures her.

“I’m always having important conversations!”

“Let the man speak,” Jenna chips in.

Thomas looks a little embarrassed to suddenly have all eyes on him. “Uh, hey. I’m Thomas Biery.”

“Nice to meet you!” Simone chirps, before Thomas has to come up with any more information about himself. “Did Tara tell you what you’d be doing in the lab today?”

“Sort of? She said it’ll mostly be training.”

“Probably,” Pat says. “I’ll give you the run-down. Clayton’s the actual person in charge of lab shit, so I’m sure he’ll show you the rest of the stuff when you’re scheduled with him, but I’ll take you through the stuff for this project, at least. Or as much we can fit in this morning, anyway. We stop lab work at noon.”

“That seems early,” Thomas observes.

Pat and Simone — who happens to be in Pat’s direct line of sight — exchange a look. “It’s a long story. I’ll catch you up as we go along. Right now — where are your goggles?”

“Oh, shit, I think I left them —”

“I’ve got some in my office,” Allegra says, with exaggerated frustration. “I’ll go grab them. You better not be as forgetful as Patrick.”

“I’ve gotten better!”

“Yeah, ‘cause you have Brian making sure you don’t leave them on your kitchen table every other day, you are otherwise the _worst_.”

“Stop making fun of me and get poor Thomas some goggles!”

They part ways for lunch; the next time Pat sees Thomas is at the end of the day, while packing up his things. He hears Allegra talking from a ways off.

“...so Pat and Brian wrote up a list of questions, right, as a prompt to go off of. I know, it’s kinda weird at first, but believe it or not, it’s equally important to the research as anything else. Have they shown you their report?”

“Yeah. I didn’t know things could get that serious. I mean everyone who’s worked with Xenium in some capacity has heard the stories, but no one ever put too much stock into them, y’know? But, wow, that’s some pretty damning evidence.” It takes Pat a moment to place the voice, which more than anything else makes it apparent that Thomas is the one speaking.

“Should’ve seen Brian when it was happening, it was fucked _up_. Hey, Pat!” Allegra says, as the two of them approach. “Did you get the email with Thomas’s report from today?”

“Uh. I think I saw it before I logged out,” Pat says.

“Someday you’ll read your emails when you get them,” Allegra says.

“Give me a break, I’m getting ready to leave. I’ll read it tomorrow. I’m sure it’s great. You seen Brian?”

“Yeah, he was chatting with whoever. Tara and some other nerds. You’ll probably have to drag him away before he talks their ears off all night. Actually, you should do that now, because Thomas and Jeff and I are going to the place down the street and you should come with us. Heck, bring the rest of whoever’s ears he’s talking off, too, we can make it a whole party.”

“Is that cool with you, Thomas?” Pat says, and Thomas nods, so Pat goes on a rescue mission to save “whoever” from Brian’s undying enthusiasm.

In an effort not to take up the entire sidewalk, they gather in a sort of two-by-two clump. Brian takes Pat’s hand as soon as they’re outside, falling in at the back of the group, and Pat drops a light kiss to his temple in response.

“I hardly saw you today, anything exciting happen?” Brian says.

“Spent most of the morning training Thomas in the lab,” Pat says, tilting his head to indicate Thomas, who is talking animatedly with Karen. “Then meetings and shit. Honestly, you didn’t miss a whole lot.”

“Aw. I missed you, though. I was editing all _day_.”

“Make any breakthroughs?” Pat says, a little teasing.

“Just that I use too many commas, but we all knew that. It’s good, though, and I’m glad to see that the reports from everyone are coming back pretty normal. Like, it’s still dangerous, but we’re more protected now. You know you need three different people to disable the safety mechanisms now? I think that’s great. I don’t — I don’t feel like I have to worry all the time, y’know? Everyone’s got my back.”

“We should never let you guys walk behind us, you either gossip or get all sappy and both are equally intolerable!” Simone says, looking over her shoulder.

“More like we should never walk anywhere near you, you terrible eavesdropper,” Brian says, and Simone laughs as she holds the door for them.

They crowd together in their usual both, considerably more cramped than normal with the addition of Karen and Thomas to the party. Pat is elbow-to-elbow with Allegra; Simone is at Brian’s left.

“Just so you know, Thomas,” Allegra says, “we have _expressly forbidden_ work talk at this table. So I hope you have something more exciting to talk about than science.”

Pat knows the look that crosses Thomas’s face. It’s reflective of a feeling Pat’s had for more than half his life. But he knows now, too, the way his expression opens a moment later, landing on something new: “My cat’s name is Sandwich.”

There’s laughter around the table, and Pat is glad. He’s sure Thomas will fit right in around here. Allegra grabs Thomas’s arm and demands he show cat pictures, and he laughs and shoves her out of the way so he can get his phone.

“Hey,” says Brian, softly, inches from Pat’s left ear. Pat turns and raises his eyebrows questioningly. “Guess what?”

“What?”

“I’ll have been here a year, next week. Can you believe it?”

“Feels like so much longer,” Pat says.

“It really does. Gosh, wow. I’m — Pat, I’m real glad I made it here. That I met you. I love this. All of it. I feel like… like I could have a future here. Like I could spend the rest of my life doing this, and I’d be happy.”

Pat takes a beat, to let this sink in. “Me too,” he says quietly. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” says Brian.

Pat doesn’t even care about Simone’s triumphant smug look when Pat puts his hand over Brian’s right there on the table, and Brian turns his hand over to hold Pat’s. This is his life now. This is what he always dreamed of doing, what he dared hope for only quietly for fear of ruining it, and he has it right here in his hands — quite literally, with Brian’s fingers laced with his. His coworkers — his _friends_ — are right here, and their laughter washes over him, bringing with it a sense of belonging, of comfort.

He holds Brian’s hand tighter, even though he knows he doesn’t have to. For once, he’s not afraid that if he loosens his grip, he’ll lose everything he wants to hold on to.

For one perfect moment, he’s happy right here, exactly where he’s at.

**THE END.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow good thing they aren't transferring to black mesa though amirite
> 
> thank you SO MUCH to everyone who's gotten to this author's note! LMAO for real though, this wouldn't have even made it up onto ao3 if you guys weren't the best most amazing most supportive community i have EVER been a part of in my life. i have nothing here to express but LOVE and GRATITUDE for all of you so here: ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
> 
> THANK YOU for coming along this ride with me!!!! i hope you had as much fun as i did!!! and hopefully i won't go silent on here for too long, lol, i've got plenty of stuff in the works >:O !!!!

**Author's Note:**

> @segmentcalled on twitter (comment if requesting so i can accept it!) / comments and kudos mean the world! ♥
> 
> email formatting from [[this tutorial]](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/A_Guide_to_Coding_and_Fanworks/works/7953412%22) and text message formatting from [[this tutorial]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6434845/chapters/14729722) !!


End file.
